2d4chan - User contributions [en]

Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Order/Seraphon

2020-03-14T14:29:14Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* Pros */

{{Age of Sigmar Faction|Faction=Seraphon|Logo=Lizardy.jpeg|Alliance=Order| Lore=Lizardmen|Motto=Aztec dinosaurs riding bigger dinosaurs that shoot lasers and fuck shit up.}}
''PAGE UNDER REWORK. With the new Warscrolls out, we still need to wait for the Battletome to come out.''
==Why Play Seraphon==
Because they are [[Lizardmen]] in AoS. Motherfucking mesoamerican dinosaur people riding motherfucking dinosaurs, what is not to love?

Want more details?, fine:

===Pros===
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]]. This trumps any other faction in AoS (including the [[Idoneth Deepkin|sea-monster-riding soul pirates]], the [[Kharadron Overlords|steampunk sky pirates]] and the [[Daughters of Khaine|bikini-clad hot chicks and monstergirls]]).
* The Lizardmen Citadel miniatures are truly the [[End Times]] survivors (space ship pyramids FTW); only 4 characters are out of printing: Oxyotl, Tenhenhauin, Skink Chief and Jungle Swarms, yet you can find Skink Chief and Jungle Swarm bits on flying cavalry/stegadon and Saurus Knights sprues respectively, and with some simple conversions you can make your own Oxyotl or Tenhenhauin.
* Since they survived so well the End of Times, they have 27 different units available; more than any other surviving miniatures without splitting into smaller subfactions (at least for Order players, since Slaves to Darkness also survived really well).
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]].
* Having so many miniatures makes room for extreme flexibility: you can go all Saurus, all Cavalry, all Skinks, all dinostomp, with tons of leaders buffing all of them. Simply you have many options available to choose from.
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]].
* Excellent synergy. Your heroes will buff and buff [[your dudes]].
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]].
* Many big heroes can generate more CP for your Dino synergies.
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]].
* Tons of bonuses for hitting rolls. If your hit roll is worse than 3+, you are doing something wrong.
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]].
* They have arguably the two most powerful, non-Monster keyword, wizards in the entire game: Lord Kroak is still around, being able to cast FOUR spells each hero phase, while having extremely aggresive abilities, but the regular Slann got a massive buff on GHB 2017, more of this on Battle Traits and Battle Traits, making your regular froggies even more verstile than Kroak. (There is still a fight akin to the Kirk vs Picard fights over whether Tzeentch or Legions of Nagash have the best wizard, even if probably Nagash IS the best wizard of the game, followed by Kroak, ''yet again, our fat frogmen don't have the keyword '''MONSTER''' like Nagash'').
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]].
* They have a strong community and a really passionate fanbase. It's fun to play a faction that has so much love behind it. There is an entire website dedicated to Seraphon/Lizardmen called Lustria Online.
* Did I mention that they are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]]?
* With the advent of the 2020 Battletome, now we come in two tasty flavours! Do you like the idea of Seraphon being quite literally Order Daemons manifested into existence via Slann memories and/or a summoning/magic centered lizard army? Go Starborne. Do you prefer the idea of Serapohn starting to colonize the Realms and starting to make their very own mini-Lustrias wherever then settle and pure dinosaurian might? Go Coalesend.
* '''NEW''' with the Battletome: [[Awesome|Now we and only we have direct control over Predatory Endless Spells]]. Giving the middle... finger? claw? real hard to Nagash and Tzeentch on this one.
*'''NEW''' with the Battletome: Skink Chiefs are back!

===Cons===
* None, they are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]] after all.
** Well to be fair many models are very old, even fugly, from 6-7th edition WFB. Just look at those derpasarus Cold Ones! Too bad they never got the proper updated Standalone Cold One model.
*As of 2020, the faction got radically redone because of [[Powergamer|player abuse]]. Like, really redone. No more OP Summoning and skink kiting. You have to rethink how to play them as many of the old combos have either been done away with or changed to the point the old tactics just won't work anymore. Now, this can also be a pro depending if you played against this army before.
* Also, all of your heroes keep your units together; individually Seraphon units can pull of a fight but are not nearly as strong without a leader nearby, so expect them to be the prime target of your enemy.
* In Summoning army lists, your Slann general's safety is critical. If the Slann is killed, there is not much of a backup option to bring additional points to the table.
* Only 1 unit in the entire army has a Rend characteristic greater than -1. (2 units, the salamander and the <s>Stegadon when at good wounds</s> razordon)
* <s>While [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]] are surely dangerous enough, ironically they lack of reliable ways to deal mortal wounds outside their Slann. Not only that, they also lack ways to PREVENT mortal wounds. This is likely for balancing purposes because they are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]] and otherwise it would be overkill.</s> EDIT: Fixed in the new battletome. Now they are probably one of the most potent armies at dealing mortal wounds. bUT TAKING THEM? THAT'S ANOTHER STORY.
* They don't make for the best-ranged army, even considering their binocular theropod vision. Yet again, this Age of Chargmar.
*While having lots of bonuses for hit rolls, Seraphon doesn't have may ways to get re-rolls or increase wound rolls. Not much of a problem, since most units already wound on 3+ roll, but still.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Most of this article was written some time ago. All the rules are more or less up to date, but as of the date of this edit, Seraphon is THE oldest battletome. The Battletome just released this week, so important rework is on the go.

==Rulebooks==
{{AOSRulebooks|tome=Seraphon|points=General's handbook 2019}}

Note: updated battletome coming soon....

==Seraphon Warscrolls==

==Allegiance Abilities==

===<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Battle Traits</span>===
If your army has a {{AOSKeyword|SERAPHON}} allegiance and chose to take the {{AOSKeyword|SERAPHON}} allegiance abilities, it has the following rule:

*'''Warriors of the Stars and the Realms:''' must pick if your entire army has The Coalesced or Starborn allegiance during list building.

*'''Contemplations of the Ancient One:''' at the end of your hero phase, 1 friendly {{AOSKeyword|SLANN WIZARD}} can swap their Celestial Domination Lore spell with another. It gives you a nice extra level of adaptability to battlefield conditions. This is literally the old rule only Slann had, but it no longer costs a spell less to cast. Fantastic.

*'''Sacred Asterisms:''' at the start of each your hero phases, you pick a constellation to be active.
**'''The Great Drake:''' During combat phase pick a SERAPHON hero, +1 attack to his melee weapons
**'''The Hunter's Steed:''' +1 run and charge for friendly Seraphon.
**'''The Sage's Staff:''' in hero phase, pick a Seraphon Wizard, he gains +1 casting and dispelling during your turn and +1 unbinding during enemy's.

====The Coalesced ====
Some of the Starborne now are savage flesh and blood dinos that have colonized the Mortal Realms, [[Awesome|making their very own mini-Lustrias wherever they stablish]].
They are territorial, with a focus on Saurus and being a tough and ferocious melee army.

*'''Predatory Fighters:''' +1 attack of jaw weapons by Coalesced.

*'''Scaly Skin:''' -1 damage inflicted for each successful attack against a Coalesced unit (min 1).

*'''Cold-Blooded:''' {{AOSKeyword|SERAPHON}} Ignore Bravery modifiers

*'''Primeval Dominion:''' [Just as planned|Within your territory, only you benefit from Damned, Arcane, Inspiring, or Mystical terrain features and the only enemy suffer from Deadly and Sinister].

*'''Coalesced Constellation:''' may take only Koatl's Claw or Thunder Lizard constellations.

====The Starborne====
The living...ish? memories Seraphon had been before 2020. They center on spamming mages and still a mobility faction with teleport and summoning in dinosaws shenanigans.

*'''Starborne Constellation:''' May pick the Dracothian's Tail or Fangs of Sotek keyword and ability.

*'''Lords of Space and Time:''' Once per turn, at the end of your movement phase, you can pick one of your {{AOSKeyword|SERAPHON}} units anywhere on the battlefield to be transported through space and time. If you do so, remove the unit from the battlefield and set up again anywhere more than 9" from any enemy unit. GHB 2019 removed the dice roll, so no more chance for a fun teleport and move. But then again, your lizards won't occasionally spend a turn staring at the stars either.
**Carnos flanking for days to come and quick escapes for your heavily damaged Slann. Deep striking is kinda what AoS is all about. If you have any experience with it, you know how valuable it is.

*'''Unfeeling:''' Starborne all have Bravery changed to 10 on Warscrolls. Given how they actually nerfed the regular Bravery to 8 in average (Kroxigors now have 7, so take that in mind), this is how we compensate

*'''Celestial Conjuration''' New summoning method brought in from GHB 2018. There are three ways to generate Celestial Conjuration points:
#In your hero phase, each {{AOSKeyword|SLANN}} or {{AOSKeyword|ORACLE}} can choose to forego one of his spellcasting attempts to give you D3 Celestial Conjuration points each time.
#At the end of your hero phase, if your general is a {{AOSKeyword|SLANN}} or {{AOSKeyword|STARSEER}} and is still alive, you receive d3 more Celestial Conjuration point.
#Also at the start of your hero phase, you receive D3 more Celestial Conjuration points if you have any Astrolith Bearers alive on the table. Note that you might have several Astroliths but you'll still only get D3 points a turn.
: You can spend these points at the end of your movement phase to summon stuff from the following list. The unit has to arrive wholly within 12" of a friendly {{AOSKeyword|SLANN}}, {{AOSKeyword|ORACLE}} or friendly Astrolith Bearer, and more than 9" from all enemy models.
: Note that you can summon several units per turn if you've saved up enough points. Also note that while the General is the main source of conjuration points, if he dies you can still spend them to bring units in near the Astrolith or a different Slann or Oracle. <s>Finally, note that you can increase the number of spell cast attempts your Slann gets with the Balewind Vortex or the Chronomantic Cogs (or both), thereby increasing the number of conjuration points you can generate <i>instead of</i> casting spells. </s> No more possible - new battletome allows the only single cast to be sacrificed to gain Celestial Conjuration Points.

'''Summoning table'''
Additional reference to [http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/the-art-of-summoning.22178/ Lustria Online The Art of Summoning] for commentary on units:
* Excellent (exceptionally useful, you should always have it at hand)
* Good (almost always useful, some time can be a suboptimal choice)
* Suboptimal (can be useful, but it's situational; usually there are better choices)
* Poor (bad unit to summon, useful only under exceptional circumstances)

Seraphon unit --- Cost

1 Dread Saurian - 50 (''suboptimal'')

1 Stegadon with skink cheif--- 30 (''-'')

1 Engine of the Gods --- 30 (''_'')

1 Stegadon --- 25 (''excellent'')

1 Saurus Old-Blood on Carnosaur --- 25 (''excellent'')

1 Skink orical on Troglodon --- 25 (''_'')

1 Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur --- 20 (''-'')

1 Bastiladon --- 20 (''-'')

20 Saurus Warriors --- 20 (''-'')

3 Kroxigor --- 15 (''-'')

1 Saurus Astrolith Banner --- 15 (''-'')

1 Skink Starseer --- 15 (''-'')

1 Skink Starpriest--- 15 (''-'')

5 Chameleon Skinks --- 15 (''-'')

1 Saurus Sunblood --- 15 (''-'')

3 Ripperdactyls Riders --- 10 (''-'')

Ripperdactyls cheif --- 10 (''-'')

1 Saurus Eternity Warden --- 10 (''good'')

5 Saurus Guard --- 10 (''-'')

5 Saurus Knights --- 10 (''-'')

1 Saurus Oldblood --- 10 (''-'')

1 Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One --- 10 (''-'')

10 Saurus Warriors --- 10 (''-'')

1 Skink Priest --- 10 (''-'')

3 Terradon Riders --- 10 (''good'')

Terradon cheif --- 10 (''-'')

1 Razordon --- 10 (''-'')

1 Salamander --- 10 (''-'')

10 Skinks --- 6 (''-'')

===<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Command Traits</span>===
There are nine traits for a {{AOSKeyword|SERAPHON}} General of an army with a '''SERAPHON''' allegiance that has chosen to take the '''SERAPHON''' allegiance abilities. You can choose one of three depending on which keyword your general has: {{AOSKeyword|SLANN}}, {{AOSKeyword|SAURUS}} or {{AOSKeyword|SKINK}}. (If you roll for picking one; use a 1D3 instead of the regular 1D6).
====<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Slann Command Trait</span>====
All of them are pretty interesting and, while not exactly situational, all of them work better under certain circumstances. Because of Starborne's Celestial Conjuration, these are the first Command Trait you will consider.

#'''Arcane Might''': Re-roll one casting and unbinding or dispelling roll each hero phase. A modest trait, and the most "generic" of the three.
#'''Vast Intellect''': The general knows one more spell from Celestial Domination lore.
#'''Great Rememberer''': as long as the general is still alive and on the field, you can throw another D6 at the start of your hero phase to get a CP on a 4+. Pretty good, considering how many CP you'll need now.

====<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Saurus Command Trait</span>====
Only considerable in a Coalesced army. Yet again, Skinks are pretty much the dominant Serpahon species now, so you might not want to use this ones all the time.
#'''Disciplined Fury''': Re-roll hit rolls of 1 for attacks made with the general's melee weapons.
#'''Thickly Scaled Hide''': Re-roll saves of 1 for the general.
#'''Mighty War Leader''': If your general is on the battlefield at the start of your hero phase, roll a d6. On a roll of 4+ you receive an extra command point. Quite possibly the one you'll want if you play a Saurus General, which will happen very rarely.

====<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Skink Command Trait</span>====
If you can't buy a Slann general, have a Skink General. Seriously, this, combined with the Artifacts and Lore make Skink Heroes THE HEROES of your whole army.
#'''Master of Star Rituals''': If the general is a {{AOSKeyword|WIZARD}}, you can add 1 to casting rolls for him. If not, you can use command ability from Skink Priest Warscroll once per phase without spending a Command Point.
#'''Nimble''': Add +1 to the general's Move characteristics and add +1 to its save.
#'''Cunning''': If the general is at 3" of an enemy {{AOSKeyword|HERO}}, on a 4 said enemy hero suffers 1 mortal wound. Unless mounted, you don't want Skinks in melee. Even mounted, it is still meh, unless its you Engine of the Gods.

===<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Artifacts of Power</span>===
One HERO in your army (+1 per additional warscroll battalion) may take a relic from the following tables:

'''Slann''' only:
#'''Zoetic Dial''' After set-up is complete but before the battle begins, secretly record the number of a battle round. At the start of the that battle round, reveal the information and then heal all wounds allocated to the bearer. In addition, during that battle round, you can re-roll save rolls for attacks that target the bearer
#'''Light of Dracothion''' Once per battle, the bearer can automatically unbind a spell used by an enemy spellcaster OR automatically dispell 1 endless spell within 15". Take this only if you expect a wizard heavy opposition. Otherwise, skip it. It's not like you're short on spellcasters anyway.
#'''Prism of Amyntok''' Once per battle, at the start of your movement phase, you can target an enemy unit within 12". On a roll of 1 it is struck with 1 mortal wound. A roll of 3-5 inflicts d3 mortal wounds and on a roll of 6 strikes d6 mortal wounds. Great if used in conjunction with <strike>Smite</strike> Arcane Bolt to kill Heroes. One use only though...
#'''Itxi Grubs''' heal 1 wound at the start of the hero phase. In addition, in your hero phase, can re-roll 1 cast/dispell for the bearer. In the enemy hero phase, re-roll 1 unbinding rolls for the bearer
#'''Plaque of Dominion''' In your hero phase, pick 1 visible enemy Hero within 12" of the bearer. Until your next hero phase, that HERO fights at the end of the combat phase. In addition, if that HERO is a WIZARD, until your next hero phase, -1 to casting/dispelling and unbinding for that HERO.
#'''Throne of the Lost Gods''' +4" to Move and +1 Wound. If you want to make a turbo-toad, then now you can.

'''SAURUS''' only:

#'''Blade of Realities''' Improve rend of one of the bearer's weapons by 1 and add 1 to its damage characteristics if the target of an attack is a HERO
#'''Sigils of the Prime Hunter''' Each time when the bearer fights, after all his attacks a made, roll D6. On 1 nothing happens, on 2-5 1 enemy unit within 1" suffer a mortal wound, on 6 - D3 mortal wounds.
#'''Bloodrage Pendant''' Add 1 to attacks of all bearers weapons, if he lost more than half of his wounds.

'''SKINK''' only:

#'''Incandescent Rectrices''' When the bearer dies, roll D6. On 1-3 he dies as normal, on 4-6 he is revived with full wounds, and all wounds allocated before are negated. Suddenly, an Engine of the Gods may become a Phoenix.
#'''Cloak of Feathers''' Add 4" to the bearer's move characteristics and substract 1 from hit rolls of attacks, that target him. He also can fly.
#'''Sacred Stegadon Helm''' Add 1 to the bearer's save characteristics and 1 to his weapons' damage, if he had charged in the same turn. Combine this with Nimble for 2+ Skink Chief on Stegadon.

===<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Seraphon Spell Lore</span>===

Lore of Celestial Domination<br>
<b>SLANN</b> only:

#'''Celestial Apotheosis:''' CV5, 1 visible friendly unit wholly within 18", heals 1 wound and gets a 3" aura of -1 Bravery. If the cassting roll is 10+, heal D3 wounds instead of 1.
#'''Walk Between Realms:''' CV6, 1 visible friendly unit wholly within 18", that unit fly until your next hero phase.
#'''Mystical Unforging:''' CV7, pick 1 visible enemy <b>Hero</b> with an artefact of power within 12". They take D3 mortal wounds and on a 5+ their artefact no longer has any effect.
#'''Celestial Equilibrium:''' CV7, +1 to cast/dispell/unbind for friendly <b>Wizards</b> other than the caster until your next hero phase.
#'''Stellar Tempest:''' CV8, pick 1 visible enemy unit within 24" , roll a die for each model in that unit, 5+ causes 1 mortal wound.
#'''Drain Magic:''' CV9, all not <b>BOUND</b> endless spells within 24" are dispelled.

Lore of Celestial Manipulation<br>
<b>SKINK</b> only:

#'''Celestial Harmony:''' CV5, pick a friendly unit wholly within 18", that unit ignores battleshock tests. If the casting roll is 10 or more, pick all friendly units <s>wholly</s> within 18".
#'''Hand of Glory:''' CV5, pick a friendly unit wholly within 18" and visible to the caster. Until the next hero phase, that unit can reroll hit rolls of 1.
#'''Extend Astromatrix:''' CV6, pick one terrain piece wholly within 18" and visible to the caster, if it is damned, arcane, mystical or inspiring, the effects only apply to the Seraphon player's units. If it is deadly or sinister, the effects only apply to the opponents units. No duration specified!
#'''Fiery Convocation:''' CV7, pick one enemy unit within 18". Until your next hero phase, roll a dice at the end of each phase, on a 6+ the units suffer d3 mortal wounds.
#'''Bind Endless:''' CV7, pick one endless spell within 18". Until your next hero phase, that endless spell has the <b>BOUND</b> keyword.
#'''Tide of Serpents:''' CV8, pick one enemy unit within 12". Roll a dice for each model in the unit, each 5+ causes a mortal wound.

==Units==
===Heros===
====Slann====
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Lord-Kroak-en.pdf Lord Kroak]:''' (Slann; Unique; 320pts) Kroak is still strong despite being nerfed due to updates. Is defensively 7W, 4+ save and negates any wound suffered on 4+. He has two unique spells: Celestial Deliverance, which he can cast 3 times per turn, allows him to inflict d3 (3 on Chaos Daemons) mortal wounds on up to three enemy units within 10" on a 2+. It gets more difficult to cast each time, starting at a casting value of 7, then 8, and finally 9. Comet's Call inflicts d3 mortal wounds on d3 (d6 if you rolled 10+ when casting) units of your choice. D3 mortal wounds... on up to any six enemy units. This spell has a global range, and only a small handful of units can shrug off mortal wounds. Do you know what you do on turn 1 with this spell? Start peppering as many enemy heroes as you can with this spell, two good shots and on average that's a kill. The enemy is a Legions of Nagash player with an annoying necromancer who'll summon a bunch of reinforcements? Comet's Call. Does your enemy general have a really devastating Command Ability? Comet's Call. Kroak is basically an assassin who traded his sniper rifle for small meteors and he can be devastating from the first turn if you capitalize on this. In addition, in a game where the average number of spells a wizard can cast is one per turn, Kroak can cast four. FOUR! And can generate extra command points. NOTE: The new Command Ability is the same as the Slann's one and Implacable Foresight is a standard ability.
** '''Kroaknado''' A popular and absolutely hilarious strategy thanks to the advent of Endless Spells. Set aside the points and put Kroak on top of a Balewind Vortex with Chronomatic Cogs nearby. Kroak now throws a whopping '''6 spells per turn with an extra 6" to the range!''' Just going off of his base spells, that gives him 3 Celestial Deliverances, Comet's Call, Arcane Bolt and a Mystic Shield each turn. But if you're playing with the Realm of Battle rules, this combo jumps from "Dick Move" to "I didn't really want friends anyways"; Throw more mortal wounds around in Aqshy and Chamon. Make Kroak into a total tank in Ghyran. Debuff your enemies something fierce in Ulgu... but for maximum fun, play against Daemons of Chaos in Hysh. Exorcising Beam+Celestial Deliverance+Comet's Call+Arcane Bolt= 1d6+9+1d3+1d3 = up to 21 Mortal Wounds! Ribbit Ribbit mothafuckas!
** Kroaknado may be further extended by getting Astrolith Bearer near Kroak (+1 to casting rolls and +6" to spell range). In the new battletome, Kroak has innate +1 to casting rolls. Use Sage's Staff Sacred Asterism on him for another +1 to casting rolls. If you really want your spells to go off, take another Slann and cast Celestial Equilibrium for yet another +1 to casting rolls. Enjoy your +4 bonus to casting rolls, +12 to spell range and 6 cast attempts. With this setup, it is possible to autocast mystic shield and arcane bolt. Celestial deliverance will go off on 3+/4+/5+ natural rolls. This is what's called MAGIC.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Slann-Starmaster-en.pdf Slann Starmaster]:'''(Slann, 260pts) Oh boy, did the [[Old Ones]] buff these lovable fat frogmen. They went from "hey, they are pretty good, give 'em a chance" to "you are playing this game wrong if you don't have one". Having powerful battle traits backed up with a choice of three strong command traits, expect to see this guy everywhere until nerfed to the ground (or get new competition for the spot). Can cast and unbind 3 spells per turn, CA gives one fellow Seraphon unit wholly within 18" the ability to fly and add 1 to saves in the Shooting Phase, Now Slann's unique spell is Kroak's Comet's Call, Masters of order (universal unbind and +1 to casting, unbinding and dispelling rolls). He is still able to cast spells, measuring the distance from Skink Priests, Oracles and Starseers.

====Saurus====
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Scar-Veteran-on-Cold-One-en.pdf Scar-Veteran on Cold One]:''' (Saurus, 110pts, 10 Summon points): Leader of the Saurus Cavalry. He can get tons of attacks from the rider and mount bites and exploding hits from warpick. His Command Ability allows one Saurus unit to score 2 hits instead of 1 on the unmodified hit roll of 6. extra effective since they have at least 2 melee weapons.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Scar-Veteran-on-Carnosaur-en.pdf Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur]:''' (Saurus, Behemoth, 210pts, 25 Summon points): Carnosaur is the big show. same CA as the Scar-Veteran on Cold One. The Carnosaur itself is filled with interesting abilities: his bite attacks get +1 to hit if he targets a unit with wound characteristics of 7 or less. In addition, if his attack kills an enemy model he can run and charge in the same turn for the remainder of the game and -1 to Bravery within 3" of the Carnosaur.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Sunblood-en.pdf Saurus Sunblood]:''' (130pts, 15 Summon points, 12 Summon points) Living avatars of <s>Dracothion</s> Sotek, the Sunblood is a dedicated combat hero that hits shit with his shield and hits even harder with his club. 7 Wounds 3+ save making him quite the tank for a hero. He's pretty good in combat as he deals a total of 7 attacks before his special ability. If he rolls a 6 to hit, that attack becomes 2 wounds. And then, a 6 to wound deals 1 mortal wound in addition to any other damage. He also has Scent of Weakness Command Ability. You can pick one enemy unit within 12" of the Sunblood. He then tells his troops "fuck that unit up," which lets every Saurus unit add 1 to wound rolls against that unit until your next turn. Great for when you really need to crush a specific enemy unit fast.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Oldblood-en.pdf Saurus Oldblood]''' ''on Foot:'' (Saurus, 110pts, 10 Summon points): Has FOUR different weapon options (please refer to his warscroll); his CA gives a Saurus unit +1 to hit.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Oldblood-on-Carnosaur-en.pdf Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur]:''' (Saurus, Behemoth, 250pts, 25 Summon points): Aside the potent Carnosaur abilities, he loses his Stardrake Shield (no longer a concern, Stardrake Shield's special rules are gone in the new Battletome) and regular weapons for a Sunbolt Gauntlet (shoots D6 times at 18", kinda regular profile, with -1 Rend and 1 damage, but get +1 To Wound if he targets CHAOS DAEMONS) and a Sunstone Spear (strong weapon, 3 attacks, 3+ to hit and wound, -1 rend and 3 damage). His Command ability is the same as Oldblood's on Foot one.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Astrolith-Bearer-en.pdf Saurus Astrolith Bearer]:''' (Saurus, Totem, 140pts, 15 Summon points) A Scar-Veteran with a totem. It allows any Seraphon wholly within 12" to ignore wounds or mortal wounds on a roll of 6 and gives +1 to casting spells and +6" to spell ranges which are all extremely desirably abilities <s>(combine this with a unit of Temple Guard that hit on 3+, and laugh as your formerly I1 get revenge on those pesky elves, HOW DOES IT FEEL BEING HIT WITH REROLLABLE 3+ TO HITS, YOU PONCES!?,)</s>. As if that wasn't enough, these guys can also be used as a focal point for celestial summoning. Usually, you have to summon units close to your Slann, but if you have an Astrolith bearer you can also summon units near the Astrolith bearer. So, you can use Lords of Space and Time to teleport your Astrolith wherever you want and then summon out of it, up to and including dropping Carnosaurs 9" behind juicy enemy battleline and other just as planned goodness, and all without risking your invaluable Slann. Have fun.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Eternity-Warden-en.pdf Saurus Eternity Warden]:''' (Saurus, 110pts, 10 Summon points) Saurus Guard-type hero, wields a big fuck-you-stick that is pretty good on its own, but ultimately you're taking him to bodyguard your Slann and buff nearby Saurus Guard. All nearby Guard units gain +1 to hit rolls. <s>And yes, this stacks with the battalion to give them D3 damage. Ouch.</s> Battalion rules have changed significantly.

====Skinks====

BTW, '''[[Awesome|Skink Chiefs are back]]'''!
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Skink-Starseer-en.pdf Skink Starseer]:''' (Skink; Wizard; 140pts; 18 Summon points) The new generic [[Tetto'eko]] and CP generator. After years of being just a Skink sitting on a palanquin with you real competitive or even casual usage, he finally can do something. Mostly useful as a utility-mage, usually generating a CP each of your Herosphases. He also has a dirty spell that increases save rolls for a single friendly unit or decreases save rolls for a single enemy unit by 1.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Skink-Starpriest-en.pdf Skink Starpriest]:''' (Skink; Wizard; 120pts; 12 Summon points) When Age of Sigmar was first released, Tetto'Eko was the only non-Slann wizard Seraphon had, but the Battletome gave them this second guy too. His only weapon's unremarkable, but he has two abilities: His staff, which can give any nearby Seraphon unit to deal mortal wounds on unmodified wound rolls of 6 (yes, this affects ranged weapons), and his special spell, which can reduce the hit rolls of an enemy unit by 1. They are cheap extra Wizards that will let you cast/dispel another Endless Spell per turn and extend the Slann's range when casting spells. It also has a chance to generate a Command Point in every friendly hero phase.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Skink-Priest-en.pdf Skink Priest]:''' (Skink; priest; 70pts;12 Summon points) Allows a unit wholly within 12" to run and charge/shoot in the same turn if he rolls a 3+ first. His Command ability adds 1 for hit rolls of any attacks made by skinks units. Being already 8", he instrumental and keeps up in the Flying lizard or Massive Dino rush. Pro-Tip: Skink Priest no longer have the option of using flying capes to increase their movements or fly, so, instead of buying an expensive Finecrap model from [[GeeDubs]], just use the spare Priest on foot you get from building a Stegadon instead of an EotG.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Terradon-Chief-en.pdf Terradon Chief]:''' (Skink; 70pts;12 Summon points) Squishy Terradon hero. Makes friendly Terradon drop rocks on 2+ instead of 4+ through Command Ability.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Ripperdactyl-Chief-en.pdf Ripperdactyl Chiefs]:''' (Skink; 80pts;12 Summon points) Same as above but on Ripperdactyl. Increases friendly Ripperdactyl jaw attacks by 1 with Command Ability. Unlike Skink Chief on Stegadon, the ability is not restricted to once per unit.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Engine-of-the-Gods-en.pdf Engine of the Gods]:''' (Skink; Artillery; Behemoth; 260pts; 18 Summon points) Replaces everything we said about the Priest from above with a fucking Triceratops and a table: you roll a number of D6 that depends on if the Slann is near it (2 usually, a Slann within 12" allows you to throw an extra dice) and you can either damage yourself, heal yourself, damage a single unit or many units (this used to be two separate types of attacks, now you have to choose one, which is far more consistent), summon 10 Saurus Warriors (this is an actual NERF. On the first iteration, it allowed you to place one unit of ANY kind, then just some of a pool of four units, now only Warriors). It's totally random, but almost all of its effects are deadly as fuck. Given how you need a Slann to make 3D roll, you will usually get the healing effect, and a good chance of attaking. Only with a Slann nearby you get the possibility of summoning Warriors, and only rolling 3 6s you can get the double attack buff. It's a bunch of skinks on a GIANT DINOSAUR! Why aren't you playing it? Rolling an 18 on the table has been updated and no longer grants a second turn, instead, it gives all of your units wholly within 24" double attacks and reroll charge rolls. Still good, but not quite as cool. [[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure | Instead of shouting out of your lunges '''ZA WARUDO!!!!''', now you have to shout '''MADE IN HEAVEN!!!!''']]. Also also, these guys now gain +1 to the save rolls against one unit they are fighting that has up to 5 models. This is a welcome increase to your chances of survival against elite units, heroes or monster hunters.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Stegadon-en.pdf Skink chief on Stegadon]:''' (Skink; Behemoth; 270pts; 24 Summon points) Same as Stegadon, but also a Hero. Receives some more attacks with Warspear and a Command Ability to give one SKINK unit wholly within 24" a bonus attack for all melee weapons.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Skink-Oracle-on-Troglodon-en.pdf Skink Oracle on Troglodon]:''' (Skink; Oracle; Behemoth; 260pts; 18 Summon points) No longer the loser it was in WFB. This blind Spinosaurus has the ability to use both range and melee decently. Its Skink Oracle rider is now a fully-fledged WIZARD and can draw upon Slann powers, receiving the Comet's Call spell, unlimited unbind range and +1 to rolls for casts, dispels and unbind attempts! It can be hilariously fast since its ranged attack gives it a reroll charge distance. It gets a bunch of decent attacks in melee and causes enemies within 3" to subtract 1 from their bravery. On top of that, it seems that now GW uses the word "'''Trog'''" as a synonym for "''regeneration''", [[Awesome|since now this mofo can heal D3 wounds per turn]]. It can be fun to watch these bifid-tail fellows snowballing out of control if your enemy somehow let them unchecked. Cool sculpt; jack of all trades, master of none tho, it might have used here and there, but you sadly will find someone who does the job better most of the. <s>Thankfully</s> Unfortunately it is the <s>cheapest</s> most expensive of the dinos available, due to the buffs. so it could (not) make up a nice filler piece. What you can't take away from him is being somewhat tanky Slann range extender that won't mind being in melee.

===Battleline===

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Warriors-en.pdf Saurus Warriors]:''' (Battleline; Saurus; 90/320pts; Min:10; Max:40; 12 Summon points for a unit of 10, 18 for a unit of 20) Saurus Warriors are one of the best Battleline units of any faction, period. With Bravery 8 (10 if STARBORNE), 4+ Save, two melee weapon attacks, they're rock solid. Get +1 attack to their hand weapon if the unit has 15+ models, Nice. Only the meanest Heros and Monsters will kill them fast; in every other circumstance, you can rely on them to [[get shit done]]. Tarpitting things, holding objectives, killing hordes, or anything you want, they will do it, and do it well. Make them the anchor of your army, and you won't be disappointed.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Guard-en.pdf Saurus Guards]:''' (Conditional battline: Seraphon army; Saurus; 100pts; Min:5; Max:20; 12 Summon points for a unit of 5) Nice to guard any hero, allowing guard unit to intercept wounds from heroes on 2+. SG hit and wound on 3+ with their halberds, make two attacks apiece, and rend at -1, plus those bite attacks that are can make for one or two extra wounds, they hit very very hard. Unfortunately, they can only be summoned in groups of five, so they make poor reinforcements. Note: These guys last long as shit against anything not designed for mowing down infantry thanks to the above rules. There is even a video in which a single temple guard lasts four rounds with a runeson on magmadroth, the first two rounds completely solo.
**They two wounds per model, and they come in units of multiple of 5, and they also lost the -1 Rend ignore rule, so better give them an anti-magic umbrella if you want them alive, or simply don't bring them if you expect heavy MW opposition.
** Also, see alternate opinion on Saurus Warriors, above.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Knights-en.pdf Saurus Knights]:''' (Conditional battline: Seraphon army; Saurus; 100pts; Min:5; Max:20; 12 Summon points for a unit of 5) A bunch of lizards riding lizards, each able to be armed with a bevy of tools. They are proper cavalry now, instead of elite infantry: they finally move at 8". Have Weapon choice to hit on 3s or get bonus damage on the charge. Run a Scar-Vet on Cold One with a Skink Starpriest to Bite enemy devour Peasants in a blink of an Eye.
** Also, see alternate opinion on Saurus Warriors, above.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Skinks-en.pdf Skinks]:''' (Conditional battline: Seraphon army; Skinks; 60pts; Min:10; Max:40; 6 Summon points for a unit of 10) They get a +1 attack if the unit has 15+ models. They are stupidly fast for infantry (seriously, now they might as well be our ranged skirmish "cavalry", [[Ork|it looks like they got all painted in red]]) and not that squishy because of their shields, unlike the plenty of skirmishers of the game. They Nurfed by no longer having the retreat ability. they are still a good ranged harassing and objective Holding/Stealing unit. Sadly, their Bravery got nerfed to the ground: 5. You don't have to worry if you are Starborne. You HAVE to worry if you are Coalesend.
** The standard box comes with the pieces to build 24 Skinks, and the SC! set comes with 12, though, with a bit of kitbashing, you can turn those 4 extras into a team of Skink Handlers and a Priest. Or better yet, as you accumulate things like Terradons and Stegadons, you will also get some spare Skinks from them, so you can make even more regular Skinks. Maybe you can tweak their pieces a little bit to be the Alphas of the unit, making them stand out in the battlefield. This is one of the boons of this hobby, especially for a faction like ours.

===Other===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Chameleon-Skinks-en.pdf Chameleon Skinks]:''' (Skinks; 90pts; Min:5; Max:20; 12 Summon points for a unit of 5) They can teleport into and out of reserve instead of moving (except during the 4th battle round). Also, have a 3+ save in cover, and shooting attacks deal a mortal wound on a 6 to hit.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Terradon-Riders-en.pdf Terradon Riders]:''' (Skinks; 120pts; Min:3; Max:12; 12 Summon points for a unit of 3) First flying cavalry. Once per game they drop mortal wound-causing boulders on units they passed through in Movement Phase, Sunleech Bolas make d6 attacks. Used as Flying Harassing Shooting and Objective Grabbing with its 16" of movement. NOTE: New battletome nerfed them hard but made them dirt-cheap too. As an additional bonus, building this sprue makes for some of the most gorgeous models in GW.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Ripperdactyl-Riders-en.pdf Ripperdactyl Riders]:''' (Skinks; 140pts; Min:3; Max:12; 12 Summon points for a unit of 3) The other vicious flying one. How they massacred my boys. They can make a lot of beak attacks, making 3 attacks that explode on 6 to hit and which once per battle rerolls hits when near an enemy near a materializing Bloat Toad. Six of these guys make for 18 (24 for Coalesced) beak attacks. Nasty. Wizards don't stand a chance. They used to make an extra attack per succesful attack, [[Skub|but not anymore]]. As an additional disadvantage, building this sprue makes for some of the most ridiculous models in GW.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Salamander-Hunting-Pack-en.pdf Salamanders]:''' (Skink; Artillery; 80pts; Min:4; Max:12; 6 Summon points) Fucking hell, these guys are deadly. They make four shooting attacks now rather than using a template, but that shot hits and wounds on 3+ and does D3 DAMAGE! A unit of these guys can really mess up an enemy monster or character. In addition, any hit rolls of 6 stop the attack sequence and deal D3 mortal wounds instead. Did I mention it has rending -2? Yeah, -2. Because fuck your enemies. Handlers are now the part of the unit and serve no purpose other than ablative wounds and the range is always 12".

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Razordon-Hunting-Pack-en.pdf Razordons]:''' (Skink; Artillery; 80pts; Min: 4; Max:12; 6 Summon points) Another ranged unit, Razordons make 2d6 attacks at 18" which gain rending -1 within 6". In addition, it can fire D6 more spicks when charged or charges, and that is still on a decent fighter.
** Alternate Opinion: Razordons are, pound for pound, the best unit in the Seraphon faction, bar none. These are basically the only units I have that my regular opponents are actually afraid of. In practice, their stat line makes them capable of some truly punishing fire. They are terrifying to charge, both because of instinctive defense overwatch shots and, well, being in melee with them means you are a captive target for their positively punishing shooting attacks (plus rending). They aren't great in melee per se, but they aren't helpless either. The same goes for their durability. They aren't really tanky by any stretch of the imagination, but just survivable enough that they can hold something up for at least a turn or two. Also, smart use of Lords of Space and Time teleportation in conjunction with razordon shooting is often referred to as the "Razorbomb" tactic and is an absolute joy to play. Razordons rule. Razordons for president.
*** The new battletome makes everything above apply to salamanders, actually. Razordons have a higher range and more shots, but salamanders less random and have better Rend and Damage and mortal wound potential.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Kroxigors-en.pdf Kroxigor]:''' (140pts; Min: 3; Max:12; 18 Summon points for a unit of 3) Melee beatsticks that have 4 hammer attacks. 1 in 3 can take a moonhammer(4+/3+/-1/2D), instead of gaining attacks equal to all enemies within its 2" range. If their bite hits on unmodified 6, it deals a mortal wound in addition to any damage. If any Skink unit is within 3" of the Krox, they add 1 to hit rolls. Wrap them up with a Skink Cohort and let the Kroxigor hammer.

===Behemoth===

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Stegadon-en.pdf Stegadon]:''' (Conditional Battline: Thunder Lizards army; Skink; Behemoth; 240pts; 24 Summon points) A monster triceratops that buffs skinks and aren't too shabby in combat itself. Unlike the Carnosaur, the Stegadon seems more fit for range combat with all the ranged attacks it gets. Unlike the next monster, however, it can defend itself in combat a decent amount. Either take a Giant bow (24"/3A/4+/3+/-1/3) or What stands out most is its Sunfire Throwers. Remember those giant blowpipes? Yeah well, we replaced the darts with FIYAAAA! Basically they're now flamethrowers, and instead of making an attack, you have to throw dice for every model in the targeted unit that is in range. On 5+ it suffers a mortal wound. Against Ogres? Not so good. Against a massive horde of zombies? Fuck me, that's a lot of attacks. Also, this guys roll 1 dice per enemy unit within 1" after charging. On a 3+, it makes D3 mortal wounds. This works better than the last iteration, and is also now exclusive for this Steggies, not for the EotG. And really, what's more metal than a giant war-dinosaur piloted by smaller dinosaurs with fucking flamethrowers? Nothing. Also also, this guy now gains +1 to the save rolls if against one unit they are fighting that has up to 5 models. This is a welcome increase to your chances of survival against elite units, heroes and monsters hunters.
**Note, however, that you have to be more than 3" from enemy units unless you are in close combat. This reduces the effective range to mere 5". The lores have two spells with similar effects, which makes bow loadout a little more appealing.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Bastiladon-en.pdf Bastiladon]:''' (Conditional Battline: Thunder Lizards army; Skink; Behemoth; 220pts; 24 Summon points) OH BOY, this dinosaur got some major tweaking. Some buffs and some nerfs. Just like the glass being half empty or half full, if it was nerfed or buffed, depends on the eye of the beholder. [[Meme|Some might argue that this changes are perfectly balanced, as all things should be]]. A crazy tanky ankylosaur monster. [[Awesome|It has a GIANT CRYSTAL POWERED LASER on its back or can send out snakes for mortal wounds]]. However, this is a ranged beast. 24" range, 9 attacks with -1 rend that do 2 damage? [[Just as planned|Now they also got 2 extra wounds by default (for a total of 10 wounds), and start WITH A FUCKING SAVE OF +1]]. [[Not as planned|This guys used to have a +4 FNP, but not anymore, and now they have a damage table with diminishing stats: making the saves worst by -1 each time they take 2 wounds, up to a +4 save, and both weapons will make less and less attacks the more damage the Bastie gets]]. Solar Engine used to make 2D6 attacks, so having a default 9 attacks is an actual buff; a stable number of attacks and not being trolled by dice suddenly wanting to make a 2 for you. The Arc of Sotek used to technically make infinite attacks, once per model, but it was never a reallistic scenario, so making multiple to different or the same model is actually another buff, however, it is now a "melee" weapon with 3" range, instead of the old 8" bubble. This is... something that makes it work differently.
** Watch out for mortal wounds! With 4+ feel no pain is gone, the only mortal wound defense for this guys is mere Astrolith Bearer's aura of 6+ wound negation. Enemies can hurt it with mortal wounds, reduce its save and then finish off in close combat. Any time it suffers 5 or more wounds, you want to heal it as soon as possible. Sticking a bound Emerald Lifeswarm near it maybe not a bad idea.

{{anchor|FWDread}}
*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos-warscroll-Dread-Saurian.pdf Dread Saurian] (Forge World)''' (Behemoth; 510pts; 50 Summon points): So you have more gold than an entire Starhost and want to show it? Fine, do it. This freshly updated 3-kilogram beast is now 510 points, with a STAGGERING 35 wounds and a 4+ save. At full health, it has Gargantuan Jaws (2"/3/3+/3+/-2/'''STRAIGHT FREAKING 6'''), Raking Claws (2"/6/2+/3+/-1/2) and Armoured Tail (2"/1/4+/3+/-1/D6). It also shrugs off magic on a 6+ (4+ if there's a Slann within 12") and when it charges, it does damage on a 2+, for D3 to {{AOSKeyword|MONSTERS}} and D6 to non-MONSTERS. When it goes down, each unit within 3" that isn't a {{AOSKeyword|MONSTER}} gets to roll. On a 4+, that unit takes D3 damage. It ALSO can, once a battle at the start of the battleshock phase, reduce all enemy bravery within 12" to HALF, which triggers before its always present -1 to bravery, meaning you can drop that Daemon squad from 10 Bravery to 4 for their battleshock phase.
** Throw this bad boy into a Coalesced army and watch him go HAM. 35 wounds, taking 1 less damage from every attack? Thing's a beast in more ways than one.

===Scenery===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Realmshaper-Engine-en.pdf Realmshaper Engine]:''' The obligatory setpiece exclusive to this army like the Ossiarch Bone-Tithe Nexus, this is a giant Aztec Pyramid that can garrison up to 20 wounds, and your wizard or priest can live on. During a Hero phase, you can have them select one terrain setpiece on the field. Roll a d6 for each enemy unit within 3" of the setpiece, adding +2 if this is all within 18" of the engine and subtracting 2 if the setpiece is beyond 36" of the engine; on a 4+, the unit suffers D3 mortal wounds.
**Note that currently this scenery piece is an extremely shitty one. It is set up before territory is determined and must be placed 6 inches away from other terrain. This is a fairly large scenery piece so this is fairly difficult to accomplish. And if your opponent wins the roll off for table edge they can pick the side you've placed your engine on and garrison themselves inside of it. They cannot shoot you with it's power unless they are using seraphon models but they can still start with units inside of it.

===Endless Spells===
Worth mentioning. We didn't really get any exclusive spells/summons like the other re-released armies, but our Endless Spells Preadatory are now controlled only by us. The enemy will no longer send our Purple Suns back to us.

==Battalions==
===From Battletome Seraphon===

NOTE: All battalions changed in the new battletome. Infomation below is outdated ATM.

'''Sunclaw Starhost:''' (130pts; Min:520pt; Max:1240pts)
''1 Sunblood + 3 Saurus Warriors''
*They all get an extra attack on their bite and their weapons gain -1 rending and 2 damage against daemons. Meh. Least it's easy to build.
**Alternate opinion, while this Battalion is mediocre, not only will you almost certain already have the units for it, extra attacks are always useful, but the most important bit is it's the base for much better Fangs of Sotek Battalion, so build it so it's always on hand!

'''Eternal Starhost:''' (150pts; Min:530pt; Max: 1250)
''1 Eternity Warden + 3 packs of Saurus Guard. ''
*All Guard gain +1 to their save when near the Warden and if they don't move, their polearms get d3 damage. This benefit still works even if your Saurus Guards pile in this Combat Phase. Since the Guards already have 4+ saves, when they get close enough to the Warden they increase it to 3+, and then, the battalion increases it again to 2+. Keep in mind, however, that they still die quite fast to Mortal Wounds.

'''Firelance Starhost:''' (150pts; Min: 490pts; Max: 1350pts)
''A Scar-Vet on a Carnosaur or Cold One leads 3 packs of Knights'''
*Any Knights near the Hero add +3 to their charges and if they roll a 6 to wound with their Celestite weapons following that charge, it becomes Mortal, which also stacks onto the rules for spears. This can be scary.

'''Shadowstrike Starhost:''' (180pts; Min:520pt. Max: 1700pts)
''A Skink Starpriest or a Skink Priest takes two units of the following list: Skinks or Chameleon Skinks; as well as one unit of either Terradon Riders or Ripperdactyl Riders.''
*You get three abilities: '''Stealthy Advance''': You roll 2D6 for every unit in this battalion after setup and move it up to at most these inches. '''The Trap is Sprung''': Your Priest picks a visible enemy unit and marks it in your hero phase. All units in this battalion reroll hit and wound rolls of 1 against that unit until your next hero phase. '''Strike from the Skies''': Instead of setting up your Terradon or Ripperdactyl Riders, you can hold them in reserve and set them up in any of your movement phases at least 3" away from any enemy. The unit will add 1 to their wound rolls in the following combat phase. It might be a good idea to pick Ripperdactyl Riders instead of Terradon Riders for their superior melee stat and the toad rage ability (since they can swoop down right next to the toad).

'''Thunderquake Starhost:''' (120pts; Min: 750pt; Max:1520pts) '' Troglodon or Engine of the Gods + two of any combo of either Stegadons or Bastilodons + either Kroxigor or a Salamander/Razordon with Handlers.''
*this one's got a lot of variety for a formation. The biggest Unit (Troglodon/EotG) and anyone nearby can either gain re-rolls to hit/charge or re-rolls to wound/save. To make this even more insane, everyone here heals a wound in the Hero phase, upping to d3 wounds when next to a Slann.

==Super-Battalions==
===From Battletome Seraphon===
*'''Starbeast Constellation:''' (230pts; 3570pt. min.) An Oldblood (On foot or Carnosaur) and a Starseer add in every other Starhost, making a massive Strike Force Ultra. Aside from every other bonus here, <s>the Oldblood also gets the ability to use his Command Ability at all times while also enabling anyone within 20" to use theirs as well.</s> New edition rules change introduce command points to use command abilities, so the Battalion's ability now gives you D3+1 command points at the beginning of the battle

==Army Building==

<s>(''Note: '''''WE NEED TO UPDATE THIS LISTS. THEY ARE 4 YEARS OLD BY NOW'''''</s> Working on updates and linkages. What a better way to start the decade than updating us, the first faction to get introduced (after Sigmarines and Khorne Bloodbounds) to the AoS parade as a whole?

The point here is to share and <s>rape, pillage, and steal</s> collaborate ideas to build an army on shape, but you should think about playing what you like the most (as always, fun is first, as long as you don't act like [[That Guy]]). Also, we'll try to suggest you easy ways to get a strong force while trying to save the most money possible, which shouldn't be that hard, since [[GW]] have been releasing bundles with decent saving on a constant basis <s>WHAT KIND OF [[HERESY]] IS THIS?</s>''). Keep in mind that with all the different special rules, opponents may get a bit tired of hearing Seraphon ignore that (e.g. Slann wizards can dispell or unbind spells anywhere on the battlefield). Sucks to be them.

===The Art of Summoning===
Credit due to [http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/the-art-of-summoning.22178/ Lustria Online forums].
Basic build information:

* Slann--Main frog. Forgo all spell casting, generates 9 CCP/turn (generates 10 CCP/turn if Slann is your General). Best to take with Great Rememberer for double LoSaT.
* Lord Kroak--THE MAIN frog. Could easily generate 13 CCP/turn (4 spells instead of 3 for Slann). Typically want to use him for his specific spell casting (especially with difference of +190 points versus vanilla Slann) instead of CCP.
* Either way, as previous previously, playing a Seraphon army without a frog is just playing the game wrong.
* Astrolith Bearer--Gives 1d3 CCP/turn. Gives the variable for getting over the 24 CCP at beginning of turn 2 with Slann + Astolith Bearer combo.
* Endless Spell Balewind Vortex--One additional spell translates to 3 additional CCP.
* Endless Spell Chronomantic Cogs--One additional spell translates to 3 additional CCP. Also can flip to the +2 move/charge to help get that Carnosaur you are going to summon engaged.
* Engine of the Gods--While not contributing to the CCP, does have independent summoning abilities. If you are going to create a summoning list, might as well go all in.

The basic summoning list would include a Slann and an AB. No casting and by Turn 2 you get 20 + 2d3 CCPs (66% chance to summon your big dinos (Carnosaur, Stegadon, Bastiladon)

Aside from the EotG, a heavy summoning list includes Slann, AB, Vortex, Starpriest, and a Cogs (casted by the Starpriest and used by the Slann). By Turn 2, if you totally forego casting, you can collect up to 29 + 2d3 CCP.

===Matched Play GHB2019 List===
Credit again to [http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/matched-play-list-ghb2019.23300/#post-281635 Lustria Online Matched Play GHB2019] and all the contributors. Below are highlights. Use the link for details, as they are updated in the forums.

'''2000 Point Lists:'''

* Dracothion's Tail/Shadowstrike Starhost--Single drop army with Slann, Oldblood on a Carnosaur, Scar Vet on a Cold one, and Starpriest. Add Rippers, Skinks, Knights, and Razors to round out. Alpha strike list with summoning.

* Shadowstrike Starhost--Slann, AB, couple EotG, and Starpriest. Add Rippers, Skinks, and Razors. More summoning focused.

* Thunderquake Starhost--Slann, AB, EotG, and Starpriest. Razors, Skinks, and couple Bastiladons (with friggin LAZORS!!!)

* Kroak+Slann Mortal Wound Spam--Because one frog just ain't enough. Slann, Kroak, AB, Scar Vet on a Cold One, Starpriest, Knight-Incantor. Add Knights and Razors. Move of a casting list to rain down magical goodness on the enemy. Also is 2-drop.

* Fangs of Sotek

* Kroaknado--Kroak, EotG xFOUR, and AB. Add Skinks and Razors. Summon from the EoTG and cast from the frog.

* Shooting--Slann, AB, and Starpriest. Add 3 units of Razor X3, Skinks, and Bastiladons x3 (with friggin LAZORS!!!)

* Eternal Starhost

* Eternal Starhost & Shadowstrike Starhost

* Dracothion's Tail

* Triple Carnosaur

* Dread Saurian w/Dracothion's Tail

'''1500 Point Lists:'''

Dracothion's Tail (@Lizerd's list)

Shadowstrike Starhost

'''1000 Point Lists:'''

Shadowstrike Starhost

Shooting

Sunclaw Starhost

Eternal Starhost

'''Meeting Engagement:'''

Eternal Starhost

Shadowstrike Starhost

Double Carnosaur

Shadowstrike Starhost w/Ripperdactyls

Dread Saurian

Purple Sun

===Start Collecting Buildup===

Arguably the best way to start your army, is get two Start Collecting! boxes. With the advent of now having to chose from both Skinks and Saurus units, now we have some of the best ways to make an army faster and having welcome discounts for buying all the models compared as buying them on their own.

Really, that easy. 2 Saurus Warriors units, 3 Saurus Knights units and an extra Knight that can be converted to a Scar-Veteran on Cold One, and two Carnos/Trog as you want, and 4 extra Warriors that can be used as summoning fodder or conversion material. Also if you're willing to field some cheeky conversions, there's a [http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/getting-the-most-from-your-start-collecting-seraphon-box.20560/ useful post] at Lustria Online that details how to really pimp this kit far beyond GW ever intended, squeezing out a solid 800+ points per box.

From there, you can take many different choices, thanks to how wide is the Seraphon range.

You could simply buy more Start Collecting! boxes, maybe another 3. This is because one box comes with 12 Warriors (because is a relatively old sprue and the regular box has 20 Warriors), so you can have 60 Warriors between the 5 boxes. You will also get another 24 Knights, but they are a pretty viable unit (unlike Oldhammer latests editions), and you will never, ever, will have extra Carnosaurs. They are just beautiful models, worth every cent.

The Thunderbeast Host bundle from GW is also a good way to save around 15% worth in the big boys of the faction: 2 Stegadons, another Carno and one flying unit. Unfortunately out of print. But...now we have a skinks bundle. That gives Seraphon pretty much all their main units save for some heroes in a bundle or convertible! Just remember to pick up a Kroak.

An honorable mention to the Arcane Heroes bundle for Silver Tower: it has a Skink Starpriest, and if you have a friend who could use the other heroes of the kits, or you yourself have another army or small force, its a good purchase.

'''NEW FOR THE NEW BATTLETOME: START COLLECTING! SKINS!''' 12 nimble mini-lizards, with 3 flying cavalry models, who you can use as objective grabers or dive bombers, given their high movement, a Bastie, which means you gets a Bastie, and a Starpriest, which means you get a Starpriest.

So, yeah, you have quite few options to get some Seraphon miniatures in easy to get blocks. '' -Hold on, hold on, are you sure this is [[GW]]?''

===Matched points===

Fortunately, Seraphon have a wide array of units, and everyone is viable.

From a single Start Collecting! you get:

* 100 points from 10 Saurus Warriors.
* 90 points from 5 Saurus Knights. **points updated!**
* 160 points from a Troglodon OR 240 from a Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur OR 260 from a Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur. **points updated!**
*''Total:'' 420 points using a Troglodon OR 480 points using a Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur OR 540 points using an Oldblood on Carnosaur.

Not counting the possible extra models you can use: 100 for a Knight converted or counting as a Scar-Vet on Cold One (damn, you could simply use the 3 extra Knights as Scar-Vets too), 100 from using the free Saurus Oldblood on foot if you buildt a Troglodon and 100 from getting creative to use your Skink Oracle as a Skink Priest or Starpriest, and you could even use Jungle Swarms from the Cold Ones bits if you are allowed.

NOTE AND UPDATE: with general's handbook 2017, every Seraphon unit received an huge discount (Balanced by the fact that their awesome warscroll battalion now cost a lot more). This mean you now can field both a Trog and and Oldblood on Carnosaurus using units in two Start Collecting boxes. Exactly, both. Have fun supporting and attacking with Oldblood and Troglodon while receiving the screening from Warriors and Knights, have fun! A lot!!

===1000 pt.===
Here the core tax is 1 '''Leader''' and 2 '''Battleline''' units, you can have up to 4 '''Leaders''', 2 '''Artilleries''' and 2 '''Behemoths'''. Your minimum tax is 220 points; 2 10-units Skins and a Skink Priest or Starpriest.

Two Start Collecting! kits gives you a quick and easy to get force, as well as a multi-task list, with some spared models to use in larger games.
* 20 Saurus Warriors (Battleline).
* 10 Saurus Knights (Battleline).
* Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur (Leader/Behemoth).
* Saurus Oldblood on Foot (Leader).
* Troglodon (Behemoth).

This uses exactly 1000 points.

This is a heavy focused melee list.

Depending on what you are facing, the Scar-Veteran and the Saurus Oldblood are good generals; excellent weapons and stats. The Saurus Oldblood is more defensive, favouring a stead approach, and the Scar-Vet is generally more offensive.

Use your Warriors in one or two blocks as you wish; you get a +1 To Hit if you have at least 20 on the same unit, but this will last just one turn or even less. Bring them along your Saurus Oldblood on foot if you are using him as your general.

Use two units of Knights, using the weapons you find the most useful. They are quite slow for regular cavalry tho, at 7". Use them as flankers and alongside your Scar-Vet if he is your general.

The Troglodon is a great addition here, since its a jack of all trades. D3 ranged attack with good profile and damage (and the only ranged unit on this list), and get 3" extra if it can charge succesfully and damaged with his poison, which can be quite effective since it has 7 attacks at +4 hit (with enough luck and not having taked so much damage, it can be able to deal 15 wounds on melee), it has its own roar that substracts 1 from enemy Bravery and, most importantly, can unbind one spell just like if it was a wizard (something this list lacks).

Not a specialist, but it [[gets shit done]]. However, never expose it to get 8 or more wounds. Its ranged attack has 18", gets worst if by 3" each time it suffers 2 or more wounds, it gets 1" for each two wounds and its bite starts at +2 to wound, reduces to +3 the next for wounds and get worst by one each time it suffers two additional wounds.

It biggest flaw is that it fills lots of roles. Expect to see some heavy focus upon it.

===2000 pt.===
Here the core tax is 1 '''Leader''' and 3 '''Battleline''' units, you can have up to 6 '''Leaders''', 4 '''Artilleries''' and 4 '''Behemoths'''. Your minimum tax is 260 points; 3 10-units of Skinks (60 points per 10) and one of the following leaders: Saurus Oldblood, Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One, Skink Priest (80 points) or Skink Starpriest.

Keep using 2 Start Collecting! kits, now you can deploy all the models included:

* 20 Saurus Warriors (Battleline).
* 15 Saurus Knights (Battleline).
* Scar-Veteran on Cold One (Leader).
* A Firelance Starhost (using the Cold One Scar-Veteran)
* Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur (Leader/Behemoth).
* Saurus Oldblood on Foot (Leader)
* Troglodon (Behemoth).

This alone costs 1340 points. But if you can replace the Oldblood on foot or [[Counts as|count it as]], you can pick a Saurus Sunblood for 20 additional points.

Now, lets assume you also got a Thunderbeast Host kit, now add:

* An Engine of the Gods (Leader/Behemoth).
* 1 Stegadon (Behemoth).
* 3 Terradon/Ripperdactyls Riders.

This will costs 1980 points, or 2000 if you play a Sunblood instead the Oldblood on foot.

Other option is use a Skink Priest or Starpriest instead the Oldblood on foot: you will have one spare Priest from building a Stegadon anyway, and with some convertion you could use your spare Oracle as one of those two. You can get a Starpriest if you wish, its a nice little sculpt.

This list features more ranged options.

Having 16 Cold One Knights, you can easily convert one into a Scar-Vet and make a Firelance. The Scar-Vet on Cold One is a good choice for a general because his command ability synergizes strongly with the Knights: re-rolling hits and charges is important, more considering how the Blazing Lances stacks with Blazing Cohort (yet another mortal wound), and the Cold Ones gain an additional attack. This battalion can easily snowball if left unchecked.

While lacking the Stardrake Shield, the Oldblood on Carno might be a little more killy than the Scar-Veteran by virtue of his sunbolt beams, while his spear is still as good as the regular. His command ability is strong for heroic wrecking balls.

The Thunderbeast models are great supportive options: the Engine of the Gods speaks for itself and the Stegadon can deal a good amount of AoE or single target damage. Both of them should be keeping distances when not overly necessary, but can be dangerous when charging towards the enemy. The flying cavalry is quite useful. Terradons should be prefered by virtue of their ranged attacks, while the Ripperdactlys can dish out important damage for evasive but fragile enemy units.

The Oldblood on foot is a strong support for your Saurus, even without its command ability. The Sunblood is [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|a big, bulky, scary lizard, able to soak decent amounts of damage and dealing it back]]. The Skink Star/Priest are reliable support options; the Priest can be a strong buff machine, while the Starpriest is a cheap wizard that can help your units with magic.

As a bonus, deploying this whole army should be a sight to behold!

====[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/03/05/stegageddon-the-final-form-of-listbuildinggw-homepage-post-2/ STEGAGEDDON]====
'''WARNING''': This is a GW invention, and even they admit this is more of a [[meme]] list than anything else. So basically, yeah, we Order Beastclaw Raiders now. [[AWESOME|Just with a herd of rampanging Stegadons]]. This also quite a throwback to WHFB 7th edition, with the old dead meme of "replace X, add Stegas".

* Field a '''Coalesced Thunder Lizard''' army. This already sounds as pleasing as you guess.

* Because of this, Steggies are now '''BATTLELINE''' instead of '''BEHEMOTH''', so you will need '''FOUR'''. Yes, you'll need money. Yes, you'll won't regret it. Equip them with a healthy blend of Skystreak Bows (A whooping 25" range, 3 attacks, 4+/3+/-1/D3) and Sunfire Throwers (A bubble of 8" 3+/3+/-/1). Remember, this celestial flamethrowers '''MAKE AN ATTACK FOR EACH MODEL IN RANGE'''. This will deter your enemy from sending units with low wounds and plenty of models against you, [[Meme|will dissapoint hordes icomesurably, and their day will be ruined]].

* Get yet another Steggie, and give him a Skink Chief as commander. His/it command ability lets you pick 1 '''SKINK''' unit per phase, wholly between 2" of range, and adds 1 to the attacks it can made with melee weapons. All Steggies, being crewed by Skinks, get this keyword, so you can trample all over your enemies with a little extra dinomight. Nice.

* Grab two Engines of the Gods. Remember the mantra of our enlightened Slann Masters: ''More Stegs, more fun''. This will give you the needed support you lacked so far. The effects from ''Cosmic Engine'' will get tweaked, since the article says that now rolls of 4-8 heal D3 wounds to nearby units. This means that the single lazor beam or the [[dakka]] whirpool will get modified. We only have to wait two weeks more, and the Engines will still rock, so no prob.

* The article here suggest you to pick a Bastie with Solar Engine (but you can technically still use other Stega). This to use it in tandem with a new Command Ability: ''TROVE OF OLD ONE TECHNOLOGY''. Per phase, an unit can use their Engines (Solar or Cosmic) once again. If ''Cosmic'', '''this means it can heal D6 wounds''', or get another chance to shoot cosmic [[dakka]] to your enemies. If ''Solar'', this means '''[[Dakka|you effectively will shoot 18 attacks PER SHOOTING PHASE]]'''.

'''1970 POINTS OF SAURIAN STOMPS!''' This of course means some problems: you will not cover the whole battlefield, you relly on '''MONSTER'''S that get diminishing stats as they get hurt, and you will be slow as Nurgle after a nightover. They also say that you can try tweaking the list adding a Slann and some Star Skink (priest or seers, so maybe the seers will get a buff to make them actually viable, even for a meme list), but this list is just a paleo-sight to behold, and an inversion worth every single cent. And if you have played [[Total War: Warhammer|Total Warhammer II]], you already know how sastifying is to send a herd of Steggies to wipe clean a horde of pesky ratmen.

Who knows? this might be the dawn of a new Stega-Meta!

===2500 pt.===
Here the core tax is 1 '''Leader''' and 4 '''Battleline''' units, you can have up to 8 '''Leaders''', 5 '''Artilleries''' and 5 '''Behemoths'''. Your minimum tax is 320 points ; 4 10-units Skins and one of the following leaders: Saurus Oldblood, Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One, Skink Priest or Skink Starpriest.

From the previous example list, not much more to add here.

If you picked a Sunblood, you could get third Warriors unit and upgrade them to a Sunclaw Starhost. Add a Slann Starmaster is a fantastic idea; 3 spells/unbinds, can cast through skink heroes and Troglodons at 15" away and buff your whole army.

This costs 2440 points. If your place allows older scrolls, you could pick a Skink Chief to close at 2500.

==Allied Armies==
Stormcast Eternals and now Sylvaneth. Fluff-wise, it makes sense: Sigmarines hate Chaos as much as we do, and Sylvaneth and us are kinda... sorta... forma... forces of nature.

===Mercenary Companies===
With the inclusion of Mercenary Companies in GHB2019, These guys now have slightly more allied unit options.
*'''Blacksmoke Battery:''' With these guys, your [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]] become [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs with guns and a chopper]]
*'''Greyfyrd:''' The Fyreslayers ally you never had, essentially.
*'''Grugg Brothers:'''
*'''Gutstuffers:'''
*'''Nimyard’s Rough-Riders:'''
*'''Order of the Blood-Drenched Rose:''' Excellent calvary unit to go with your already excellent cavalry units.
*'''Rampagers:'''
*'''Skroug’s Menagerie:'''
*'''Sons of the Lichemaster:'''
*'''Tenebrous Court:'''

==External links==
Rules are here
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
Here are links to all the warscrolls for the army, in the same order as they are listed in the article.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

* [http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-lizardmen-en.pdf Their Warscroll Compendium]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-lordkroak-en.pdf Lord Kroak]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-slannstarmaster-en.pdf Slann Starmaster]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-saurusoldblood-en.pdf Saurus Oldblood (On Foot)]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-oldbloodcarnosaur-en.pdf Saurus Oldblood (On Carnosaur)]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-veterancarnosaur-en.pdf Scar Veteran (On Carnosaur)]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-veterancoldone-en.pdf Scar Veteran (On Cold One)]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-saurussunblood-en.pdf Saurus Sunblood]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-astrolithbearer-en.pdf Astrolith Bearer]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-eternitywarden-en.pdf Eternity Warden]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-sauruswarriors-en.pdf Saurus Warriors]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-saurusguard-en.pdf Saurus Guard]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-saurusknights-en.pdf Saurus Knights]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-skinkstarseer-en.pdf Skink Starseer]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-skinkstarpriest-en.pdf Skink Starpriest]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-skinkpriest-en.pdf Skink Priest]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-skinks-en.pdf Skinks]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-chameleonskinks-en.pdf Chameleon Skinks]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-terradonriders-en.pdf Terradon Riders]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-ripperdactylriders-en.pdf Ripperdactyl Riders]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-salamander-en.pdf Salamander]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-razordon-en.pdf Razordon]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-kroxigor-en.pdf Kroxigor]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-engineofthegods-en.pdf Engine]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-stegadon-en.pdf Stegadon]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-bastiladon-en.pdf Bastiladon]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-troglodon-en.pdf Troglodon]

</div></div>

*[http://www.lustria-online.com/ Lustria-Online.com, the main Seraphon army forum.]
{{Age_of_Sigmar_Tactics}}
[[Category:Age of Sigmar]] [[Category:Age of Sigmar/Tactics]]

Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Order/Seraphon

2020-03-14T14:26:54Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* Pros */

{{Age of Sigmar Faction|Faction=Seraphon|Logo=Lizardy.jpeg|Alliance=Order| Lore=Lizardmen|Motto=Aztec dinosaurs riding bigger dinosaurs that shoot lasers and fuck shit up.}}
''PAGE UNDER REWORK. With the new Warscrolls out, we still need to wait for the Battletome to come out.''
==Why Play Seraphon==
Because they are [[Lizardmen]] in AoS. Motherfucking mesoamerican dinosaur people riding motherfucking dinosaurs, what is not to love?

Want more details?, fine:

===Pros===
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]]. This trumps any other faction in AoS (including the [[Idoneth Deepkin|sea-monster-riding soul pirates]] and the [[Daughter of Khaine|bikini-clad hot chicks and monstergirls]]).
* The Lizardmen Citadel miniatures are truly the [[End Times]] survivors (space ship pyramids FTW); only 4 characters are out of printing: Oxyotl, Tenhenhauin, Skink Chief and Jungle Swarms, yet you can find Skink Chief and Jungle Swarm bits on flying cavalry/stegadon and Saurus Knights sprues respectively, and with some simple conversions you can make your own Oxyotl or Tenhenhauin.
* Since they survived so well the End of Times, they have 27 different units available; more than any other surviving miniatures without splitting into smaller subfactions (at least for Order players, since Slaves to Darkness also survived really well).
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]].
* Having so many miniatures makes room for extreme flexibility: you can go all Saurus, all Cavalry, all Skinks, all dinostomp, with tons of leaders buffing all of them. Simply you have many options available to choose from.
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]].
* Excellent synergy. Your heroes will buff and buff [[your dudes]].
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]].
* Many big heroes can generate more CP for your Dino synergies.
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]].
* Tons of bonuses for hitting rolls. If your hit roll is worse than 3+, you are doing something wrong.
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]].
* They have arguably the two most powerful, non-Monster keyword, wizards in the entire game: Lord Kroak is still around, being able to cast FOUR spells each hero phase, while having extremely aggresive abilities, but the regular Slann got a massive buff on GHB 2017, more of this on Battle Traits and Battle Traits, making your regular froggies even more verstile than Kroak. (There is still a fight akin to the Kirk vs Picard fights over whether Tzeentch or Legions of Nagash have the best wizard, even if probably Nagash IS the best wizard of the game, followed by Kroak, ''yet again, our fat frogmen don't have the keyword '''MONSTER''' like Nagash'').
* They are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]].
* They have a strong community and a really passionate fanbase. It's fun to play a faction that has so much love behind it. There is an entire website dedicated to Seraphon/Lizardmen called Lustria Online.
* Did I mention that they are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]]?
* With the advent of the 2020 Battletome, now we come in two tasty flavours! Do you like the idea of Seraphon being quite literally Order Daemons manifested into existence via Slann memories and/or a summoning/magic centered lizard army? Go Starborne. Do you prefer the idea of Serapohn starting to colonize the Realms and starting to make their very own mini-Lustrias wherever then settle and pure dinosaurian might? Go Coalesend.
* '''NEW''' with the Battletome: [[Awesome|Now we and only we have direct control over Predatory Endless Spells]]. Giving the middle... finger? claw? real hard to Nagash and Tzeentch on this one.
*'''NEW''' with the Battletome: Skink Chiefs are back!

===Cons===
* None, they are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]] after all.
** Well to be fair many models are very old, even fugly, from 6-7th edition WFB. Just look at those derpasarus Cold Ones! Too bad they never got the proper updated Standalone Cold One model.
*As of 2020, the faction got radically redone because of [[Powergamer|player abuse]]. Like, really redone. No more OP Summoning and skink kiting. You have to rethink how to play them as many of the old combos have either been done away with or changed to the point the old tactics just won't work anymore. Now, this can also be a pro depending if you played against this army before.
* Also, all of your heroes keep your units together; individually Seraphon units can pull of a fight but are not nearly as strong without a leader nearby, so expect them to be the prime target of your enemy.
* In Summoning army lists, your Slann general's safety is critical. If the Slann is killed, there is not much of a backup option to bring additional points to the table.
* Only 1 unit in the entire army has a Rend characteristic greater than -1. (2 units, the salamander and the <s>Stegadon when at good wounds</s> razordon)
* <s>While [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]] are surely dangerous enough, ironically they lack of reliable ways to deal mortal wounds outside their Slann. Not only that, they also lack ways to PREVENT mortal wounds. This is likely for balancing purposes because they are [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]] and otherwise it would be overkill.</s> EDIT: Fixed in the new battletome. Now they are probably one of the most potent armies at dealing mortal wounds. bUT TAKING THEM? THAT'S ANOTHER STORY.
* They don't make for the best-ranged army, even considering their binocular theropod vision. Yet again, this Age of Chargmar.
*While having lots of bonuses for hit rolls, Seraphon doesn't have may ways to get re-rolls or increase wound rolls. Not much of a problem, since most units already wound on 3+ roll, but still.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Most of this article was written some time ago. All the rules are more or less up to date, but as of the date of this edit, Seraphon is THE oldest battletome. The Battletome just released this week, so important rework is on the go.

==Rulebooks==
{{AOSRulebooks|tome=Seraphon|points=General's handbook 2019}}

Note: updated battletome coming soon....

==Seraphon Warscrolls==

==Allegiance Abilities==

===<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Battle Traits</span>===
If your army has a {{AOSKeyword|SERAPHON}} allegiance and chose to take the {{AOSKeyword|SERAPHON}} allegiance abilities, it has the following rule:

*'''Warriors of the Stars and the Realms:''' must pick if your entire army has The Coalesced or Starborn allegiance during list building.

*'''Contemplations of the Ancient One:''' at the end of your hero phase, 1 friendly {{AOSKeyword|SLANN WIZARD}} can swap their Celestial Domination Lore spell with another. It gives you a nice extra level of adaptability to battlefield conditions. This is literally the old rule only Slann had, but it no longer costs a spell less to cast. Fantastic.

*'''Sacred Asterisms:''' at the start of each your hero phases, you pick a constellation to be active.
**'''The Great Drake:''' During combat phase pick a SERAPHON hero, +1 attack to his melee weapons
**'''The Hunter's Steed:''' +1 run and charge for friendly Seraphon.
**'''The Sage's Staff:''' in hero phase, pick a Seraphon Wizard, he gains +1 casting and dispelling during your turn and +1 unbinding during enemy's.

====The Coalesced ====
Some of the Starborne now are savage flesh and blood dinos that have colonized the Mortal Realms, [[Awesome|making their very own mini-Lustrias wherever they stablish]].
They are territorial, with a focus on Saurus and being a tough and ferocious melee army.

*'''Predatory Fighters:''' +1 attack of jaw weapons by Coalesced.

*'''Scaly Skin:''' -1 damage inflicted for each successful attack against a Coalesced unit (min 1).

*'''Cold-Blooded:''' {{AOSKeyword|SERAPHON}} Ignore Bravery modifiers

*'''Primeval Dominion:''' [Just as planned|Within your territory, only you benefit from Damned, Arcane, Inspiring, or Mystical terrain features and the only enemy suffer from Deadly and Sinister].

*'''Coalesced Constellation:''' may take only Koatl's Claw or Thunder Lizard constellations.

====The Starborne====
The living...ish? memories Seraphon had been before 2020. They center on spamming mages and still a mobility faction with teleport and summoning in dinosaws shenanigans.

*'''Starborne Constellation:''' May pick the Dracothian's Tail or Fangs of Sotek keyword and ability.

*'''Lords of Space and Time:''' Once per turn, at the end of your movement phase, you can pick one of your {{AOSKeyword|SERAPHON}} units anywhere on the battlefield to be transported through space and time. If you do so, remove the unit from the battlefield and set up again anywhere more than 9" from any enemy unit. GHB 2019 removed the dice roll, so no more chance for a fun teleport and move. But then again, your lizards won't occasionally spend a turn staring at the stars either.
**Carnos flanking for days to come and quick escapes for your heavily damaged Slann. Deep striking is kinda what AoS is all about. If you have any experience with it, you know how valuable it is.

*'''Unfeeling:''' Starborne all have Bravery changed to 10 on Warscrolls. Given how they actually nerfed the regular Bravery to 8 in average (Kroxigors now have 7, so take that in mind), this is how we compensate

*'''Celestial Conjuration''' New summoning method brought in from GHB 2018. There are three ways to generate Celestial Conjuration points:
#In your hero phase, each {{AOSKeyword|SLANN}} or {{AOSKeyword|ORACLE}} can choose to forego one of his spellcasting attempts to give you D3 Celestial Conjuration points each time.
#At the end of your hero phase, if your general is a {{AOSKeyword|SLANN}} or {{AOSKeyword|STARSEER}} and is still alive, you receive d3 more Celestial Conjuration point.
#Also at the start of your hero phase, you receive D3 more Celestial Conjuration points if you have any Astrolith Bearers alive on the table. Note that you might have several Astroliths but you'll still only get D3 points a turn.
: You can spend these points at the end of your movement phase to summon stuff from the following list. The unit has to arrive wholly within 12" of a friendly {{AOSKeyword|SLANN}}, {{AOSKeyword|ORACLE}} or friendly Astrolith Bearer, and more than 9" from all enemy models.
: Note that you can summon several units per turn if you've saved up enough points. Also note that while the General is the main source of conjuration points, if he dies you can still spend them to bring units in near the Astrolith or a different Slann or Oracle. <s>Finally, note that you can increase the number of spell cast attempts your Slann gets with the Balewind Vortex or the Chronomantic Cogs (or both), thereby increasing the number of conjuration points you can generate <i>instead of</i> casting spells. </s> No more possible - new battletome allows the only single cast to be sacrificed to gain Celestial Conjuration Points.

'''Summoning table'''
Additional reference to [http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/the-art-of-summoning.22178/ Lustria Online The Art of Summoning] for commentary on units:
* Excellent (exceptionally useful, you should always have it at hand)
* Good (almost always useful, some time can be a suboptimal choice)
* Suboptimal (can be useful, but it's situational; usually there are better choices)
* Poor (bad unit to summon, useful only under exceptional circumstances)

Seraphon unit --- Cost

1 Dread Saurian - 50 (''suboptimal'')

1 Stegadon with skink cheif--- 30 (''-'')

1 Engine of the Gods --- 30 (''_'')

1 Stegadon --- 25 (''excellent'')

1 Saurus Old-Blood on Carnosaur --- 25 (''excellent'')

1 Skink orical on Troglodon --- 25 (''_'')

1 Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur --- 20 (''-'')

1 Bastiladon --- 20 (''-'')

20 Saurus Warriors --- 20 (''-'')

3 Kroxigor --- 15 (''-'')

1 Saurus Astrolith Banner --- 15 (''-'')

1 Skink Starseer --- 15 (''-'')

1 Skink Starpriest--- 15 (''-'')

5 Chameleon Skinks --- 15 (''-'')

1 Saurus Sunblood --- 15 (''-'')

3 Ripperdactyls Riders --- 10 (''-'')

Ripperdactyls cheif --- 10 (''-'')

1 Saurus Eternity Warden --- 10 (''good'')

5 Saurus Guard --- 10 (''-'')

5 Saurus Knights --- 10 (''-'')

1 Saurus Oldblood --- 10 (''-'')

1 Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One --- 10 (''-'')

10 Saurus Warriors --- 10 (''-'')

1 Skink Priest --- 10 (''-'')

3 Terradon Riders --- 10 (''good'')

Terradon cheif --- 10 (''-'')

1 Razordon --- 10 (''-'')

1 Salamander --- 10 (''-'')

10 Skinks --- 6 (''-'')

===<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Command Traits</span>===
There are nine traits for a {{AOSKeyword|SERAPHON}} General of an army with a '''SERAPHON''' allegiance that has chosen to take the '''SERAPHON''' allegiance abilities. You can choose one of three depending on which keyword your general has: {{AOSKeyword|SLANN}}, {{AOSKeyword|SAURUS}} or {{AOSKeyword|SKINK}}. (If you roll for picking one; use a 1D3 instead of the regular 1D6).
====<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Slann Command Trait</span>====
All of them are pretty interesting and, while not exactly situational, all of them work better under certain circumstances. Because of Starborne's Celestial Conjuration, these are the first Command Trait you will consider.

#'''Arcane Might''': Re-roll one casting and unbinding or dispelling roll each hero phase. A modest trait, and the most "generic" of the three.
#'''Vast Intellect''': The general knows one more spell from Celestial Domination lore.
#'''Great Rememberer''': as long as the general is still alive and on the field, you can throw another D6 at the start of your hero phase to get a CP on a 4+. Pretty good, considering how many CP you'll need now.

====<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Saurus Command Trait</span>====
Only considerable in a Coalesced army. Yet again, Skinks are pretty much the dominant Serpahon species now, so you might not want to use this ones all the time.
#'''Disciplined Fury''': Re-roll hit rolls of 1 for attacks made with the general's melee weapons.
#'''Thickly Scaled Hide''': Re-roll saves of 1 for the general.
#'''Mighty War Leader''': If your general is on the battlefield at the start of your hero phase, roll a d6. On a roll of 4+ you receive an extra command point. Quite possibly the one you'll want if you play a Saurus General, which will happen very rarely.

====<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Skink Command Trait</span>====
If you can't buy a Slann general, have a Skink General. Seriously, this, combined with the Artifacts and Lore make Skink Heroes THE HEROES of your whole army.
#'''Master of Star Rituals''': If the general is a {{AOSKeyword|WIZARD}}, you can add 1 to casting rolls for him. If not, you can use command ability from Skink Priest Warscroll once per phase without spending a Command Point.
#'''Nimble''': Add +1 to the general's Move characteristics and add +1 to its save.
#'''Cunning''': If the general is at 3" of an enemy {{AOSKeyword|HERO}}, on a 4 said enemy hero suffers 1 mortal wound. Unless mounted, you don't want Skinks in melee. Even mounted, it is still meh, unless its you Engine of the Gods.

===<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Artifacts of Power</span>===
One HERO in your army (+1 per additional warscroll battalion) may take a relic from the following tables:

'''Slann''' only:
#'''Zoetic Dial''' After set-up is complete but before the battle begins, secretly record the number of a battle round. At the start of the that battle round, reveal the information and then heal all wounds allocated to the bearer. In addition, during that battle round, you can re-roll save rolls for attacks that target the bearer
#'''Light of Dracothion''' Once per battle, the bearer can automatically unbind a spell used by an enemy spellcaster OR automatically dispell 1 endless spell within 15". Take this only if you expect a wizard heavy opposition. Otherwise, skip it. It's not like you're short on spellcasters anyway.
#'''Prism of Amyntok''' Once per battle, at the start of your movement phase, you can target an enemy unit within 12". On a roll of 1 it is struck with 1 mortal wound. A roll of 3-5 inflicts d3 mortal wounds and on a roll of 6 strikes d6 mortal wounds. Great if used in conjunction with <strike>Smite</strike> Arcane Bolt to kill Heroes. One use only though...
#'''Itxi Grubs''' heal 1 wound at the start of the hero phase. In addition, in your hero phase, can re-roll 1 cast/dispell for the bearer. In the enemy hero phase, re-roll 1 unbinding rolls for the bearer
#'''Plaque of Dominion''' In your hero phase, pick 1 visible enemy Hero within 12" of the bearer. Until your next hero phase, that HERO fights at the end of the combat phase. In addition, if that HERO is a WIZARD, until your next hero phase, -1 to casting/dispelling and unbinding for that HERO.
#'''Throne of the Lost Gods''' +4" to Move and +1 Wound. If you want to make a turbo-toad, then now you can.

'''SAURUS''' only:

#'''Blade of Realities''' Improve rend of one of the bearer's weapons by 1 and add 1 to its damage characteristics if the target of an attack is a HERO
#'''Sigils of the Prime Hunter''' Each time when the bearer fights, after all his attacks a made, roll D6. On 1 nothing happens, on 2-5 1 enemy unit within 1" suffer a mortal wound, on 6 - D3 mortal wounds.
#'''Bloodrage Pendant''' Add 1 to attacks of all bearers weapons, if he lost more than half of his wounds.

'''SKINK''' only:

#'''Incandescent Rectrices''' When the bearer dies, roll D6. On 1-3 he dies as normal, on 4-6 he is revived with full wounds, and all wounds allocated before are negated. Suddenly, an Engine of the Gods may become a Phoenix.
#'''Cloak of Feathers''' Add 4" to the bearer's move characteristics and substract 1 from hit rolls of attacks, that target him. He also can fly.
#'''Sacred Stegadon Helm''' Add 1 to the bearer's save characteristics and 1 to his weapons' damage, if he had charged in the same turn. Combine this with Nimble for 2+ Skink Chief on Stegadon.

===<span style="color:#00DDF3;">Seraphon Spell Lore</span>===

Lore of Celestial Domination<br>
<b>SLANN</b> only:

#'''Celestial Apotheosis:''' CV5, 1 visible friendly unit wholly within 18", heals 1 wound and gets a 3" aura of -1 Bravery. If the cassting roll is 10+, heal D3 wounds instead of 1.
#'''Walk Between Realms:''' CV6, 1 visible friendly unit wholly within 18", that unit fly until your next hero phase.
#'''Mystical Unforging:''' CV7, pick 1 visible enemy <b>Hero</b> with an artefact of power within 12". They take D3 mortal wounds and on a 5+ their artefact no longer has any effect.
#'''Celestial Equilibrium:''' CV7, +1 to cast/dispell/unbind for friendly <b>Wizards</b> other than the caster until your next hero phase.
#'''Stellar Tempest:''' CV8, pick 1 visible enemy unit within 24" , roll a die for each model in that unit, 5+ causes 1 mortal wound.
#'''Drain Magic:''' CV9, all not <b>BOUND</b> endless spells within 24" are dispelled.

Lore of Celestial Manipulation<br>
<b>SKINK</b> only:

#'''Celestial Harmony:''' CV5, pick a friendly unit wholly within 18", that unit ignores battleshock tests. If the casting roll is 10 or more, pick all friendly units <s>wholly</s> within 18".
#'''Hand of Glory:''' CV5, pick a friendly unit wholly within 18" and visible to the caster. Until the next hero phase, that unit can reroll hit rolls of 1.
#'''Extend Astromatrix:''' CV6, pick one terrain piece wholly within 18" and visible to the caster, if it is damned, arcane, mystical or inspiring, the effects only apply to the Seraphon player's units. If it is deadly or sinister, the effects only apply to the opponents units. No duration specified!
#'''Fiery Convocation:''' CV7, pick one enemy unit within 18". Until your next hero phase, roll a dice at the end of each phase, on a 6+ the units suffer d3 mortal wounds.
#'''Bind Endless:''' CV7, pick one endless spell within 18". Until your next hero phase, that endless spell has the <b>BOUND</b> keyword.
#'''Tide of Serpents:''' CV8, pick one enemy unit within 12". Roll a dice for each model in the unit, each 5+ causes a mortal wound.

==Units==
===Heros===
====Slann====
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Lord-Kroak-en.pdf Lord Kroak]:''' (Slann; Unique; 320pts) Kroak is still strong despite being nerfed due to updates. Is defensively 7W, 4+ save and negates any wound suffered on 4+. He has two unique spells: Celestial Deliverance, which he can cast 3 times per turn, allows him to inflict d3 (3 on Chaos Daemons) mortal wounds on up to three enemy units within 10" on a 2+. It gets more difficult to cast each time, starting at a casting value of 7, then 8, and finally 9. Comet's Call inflicts d3 mortal wounds on d3 (d6 if you rolled 10+ when casting) units of your choice. D3 mortal wounds... on up to any six enemy units. This spell has a global range, and only a small handful of units can shrug off mortal wounds. Do you know what you do on turn 1 with this spell? Start peppering as many enemy heroes as you can with this spell, two good shots and on average that's a kill. The enemy is a Legions of Nagash player with an annoying necromancer who'll summon a bunch of reinforcements? Comet's Call. Does your enemy general have a really devastating Command Ability? Comet's Call. Kroak is basically an assassin who traded his sniper rifle for small meteors and he can be devastating from the first turn if you capitalize on this. In addition, in a game where the average number of spells a wizard can cast is one per turn, Kroak can cast four. FOUR! And can generate extra command points. NOTE: The new Command Ability is the same as the Slann's one and Implacable Foresight is a standard ability.
** '''Kroaknado''' A popular and absolutely hilarious strategy thanks to the advent of Endless Spells. Set aside the points and put Kroak on top of a Balewind Vortex with Chronomatic Cogs nearby. Kroak now throws a whopping '''6 spells per turn with an extra 6" to the range!''' Just going off of his base spells, that gives him 3 Celestial Deliverances, Comet's Call, Arcane Bolt and a Mystic Shield each turn. But if you're playing with the Realm of Battle rules, this combo jumps from "Dick Move" to "I didn't really want friends anyways"; Throw more mortal wounds around in Aqshy and Chamon. Make Kroak into a total tank in Ghyran. Debuff your enemies something fierce in Ulgu... but for maximum fun, play against Daemons of Chaos in Hysh. Exorcising Beam+Celestial Deliverance+Comet's Call+Arcane Bolt= 1d6+9+1d3+1d3 = up to 21 Mortal Wounds! Ribbit Ribbit mothafuckas!
** Kroaknado may be further extended by getting Astrolith Bearer near Kroak (+1 to casting rolls and +6" to spell range). In the new battletome, Kroak has innate +1 to casting rolls. Use Sage's Staff Sacred Asterism on him for another +1 to casting rolls. If you really want your spells to go off, take another Slann and cast Celestial Equilibrium for yet another +1 to casting rolls. Enjoy your +4 bonus to casting rolls, +12 to spell range and 6 cast attempts. With this setup, it is possible to autocast mystic shield and arcane bolt. Celestial deliverance will go off on 3+/4+/5+ natural rolls. This is what's called MAGIC.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Slann-Starmaster-en.pdf Slann Starmaster]:'''(Slann, 260pts) Oh boy, did the [[Old Ones]] buff these lovable fat frogmen. They went from "hey, they are pretty good, give 'em a chance" to "you are playing this game wrong if you don't have one". Having powerful battle traits backed up with a choice of three strong command traits, expect to see this guy everywhere until nerfed to the ground (or get new competition for the spot). Can cast and unbind 3 spells per turn, CA gives one fellow Seraphon unit wholly within 18" the ability to fly and add 1 to saves in the Shooting Phase, Now Slann's unique spell is Kroak's Comet's Call, Masters of order (universal unbind and +1 to casting, unbinding and dispelling rolls). He is still able to cast spells, measuring the distance from Skink Priests, Oracles and Starseers.

====Saurus====
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Scar-Veteran-on-Cold-One-en.pdf Scar-Veteran on Cold One]:''' (Saurus, 110pts, 10 Summon points): Leader of the Saurus Cavalry. He can get tons of attacks from the rider and mount bites and exploding hits from warpick. His Command Ability allows one Saurus unit to score 2 hits instead of 1 on the unmodified hit roll of 6. extra effective since they have at least 2 melee weapons.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Scar-Veteran-on-Carnosaur-en.pdf Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur]:''' (Saurus, Behemoth, 210pts, 25 Summon points): Carnosaur is the big show. same CA as the Scar-Veteran on Cold One. The Carnosaur itself is filled with interesting abilities: his bite attacks get +1 to hit if he targets a unit with wound characteristics of 7 or less. In addition, if his attack kills an enemy model he can run and charge in the same turn for the remainder of the game and -1 to Bravery within 3" of the Carnosaur.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Sunblood-en.pdf Saurus Sunblood]:''' (130pts, 15 Summon points, 12 Summon points) Living avatars of <s>Dracothion</s> Sotek, the Sunblood is a dedicated combat hero that hits shit with his shield and hits even harder with his club. 7 Wounds 3+ save making him quite the tank for a hero. He's pretty good in combat as he deals a total of 7 attacks before his special ability. If he rolls a 6 to hit, that attack becomes 2 wounds. And then, a 6 to wound deals 1 mortal wound in addition to any other damage. He also has Scent of Weakness Command Ability. You can pick one enemy unit within 12" of the Sunblood. He then tells his troops "fuck that unit up," which lets every Saurus unit add 1 to wound rolls against that unit until your next turn. Great for when you really need to crush a specific enemy unit fast.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Oldblood-en.pdf Saurus Oldblood]''' ''on Foot:'' (Saurus, 110pts, 10 Summon points): Has FOUR different weapon options (please refer to his warscroll); his CA gives a Saurus unit +1 to hit.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Oldblood-on-Carnosaur-en.pdf Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur]:''' (Saurus, Behemoth, 250pts, 25 Summon points): Aside the potent Carnosaur abilities, he loses his Stardrake Shield (no longer a concern, Stardrake Shield's special rules are gone in the new Battletome) and regular weapons for a Sunbolt Gauntlet (shoots D6 times at 18", kinda regular profile, with -1 Rend and 1 damage, but get +1 To Wound if he targets CHAOS DAEMONS) and a Sunstone Spear (strong weapon, 3 attacks, 3+ to hit and wound, -1 rend and 3 damage). His Command ability is the same as Oldblood's on Foot one.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Astrolith-Bearer-en.pdf Saurus Astrolith Bearer]:''' (Saurus, Totem, 140pts, 15 Summon points) A Scar-Veteran with a totem. It allows any Seraphon wholly within 12" to ignore wounds or mortal wounds on a roll of 6 and gives +1 to casting spells and +6" to spell ranges which are all extremely desirably abilities <s>(combine this with a unit of Temple Guard that hit on 3+, and laugh as your formerly I1 get revenge on those pesky elves, HOW DOES IT FEEL BEING HIT WITH REROLLABLE 3+ TO HITS, YOU PONCES!?,)</s>. As if that wasn't enough, these guys can also be used as a focal point for celestial summoning. Usually, you have to summon units close to your Slann, but if you have an Astrolith bearer you can also summon units near the Astrolith bearer. So, you can use Lords of Space and Time to teleport your Astrolith wherever you want and then summon out of it, up to and including dropping Carnosaurs 9" behind juicy enemy battleline and other just as planned goodness, and all without risking your invaluable Slann. Have fun.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Eternity-Warden-en.pdf Saurus Eternity Warden]:''' (Saurus, 110pts, 10 Summon points) Saurus Guard-type hero, wields a big fuck-you-stick that is pretty good on its own, but ultimately you're taking him to bodyguard your Slann and buff nearby Saurus Guard. All nearby Guard units gain +1 to hit rolls. <s>And yes, this stacks with the battalion to give them D3 damage. Ouch.</s> Battalion rules have changed significantly.

====Skinks====

BTW, '''[[Awesome|Skink Chiefs are back]]'''!
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Skink-Starseer-en.pdf Skink Starseer]:''' (Skink; Wizard; 140pts; 18 Summon points) The new generic [[Tetto'eko]] and CP generator. After years of being just a Skink sitting on a palanquin with you real competitive or even casual usage, he finally can do something. Mostly useful as a utility-mage, usually generating a CP each of your Herosphases. He also has a dirty spell that increases save rolls for a single friendly unit or decreases save rolls for a single enemy unit by 1.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Skink-Starpriest-en.pdf Skink Starpriest]:''' (Skink; Wizard; 120pts; 12 Summon points) When Age of Sigmar was first released, Tetto'Eko was the only non-Slann wizard Seraphon had, but the Battletome gave them this second guy too. His only weapon's unremarkable, but he has two abilities: His staff, which can give any nearby Seraphon unit to deal mortal wounds on unmodified wound rolls of 6 (yes, this affects ranged weapons), and his special spell, which can reduce the hit rolls of an enemy unit by 1. They are cheap extra Wizards that will let you cast/dispel another Endless Spell per turn and extend the Slann's range when casting spells. It also has a chance to generate a Command Point in every friendly hero phase.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Skink-Priest-en.pdf Skink Priest]:''' (Skink; priest; 70pts;12 Summon points) Allows a unit wholly within 12" to run and charge/shoot in the same turn if he rolls a 3+ first. His Command ability adds 1 for hit rolls of any attacks made by skinks units. Being already 8", he instrumental and keeps up in the Flying lizard or Massive Dino rush. Pro-Tip: Skink Priest no longer have the option of using flying capes to increase their movements or fly, so, instead of buying an expensive Finecrap model from [[GeeDubs]], just use the spare Priest on foot you get from building a Stegadon instead of an EotG.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Terradon-Chief-en.pdf Terradon Chief]:''' (Skink; 70pts;12 Summon points) Squishy Terradon hero. Makes friendly Terradon drop rocks on 2+ instead of 4+ through Command Ability.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Ripperdactyl-Chief-en.pdf Ripperdactyl Chiefs]:''' (Skink; 80pts;12 Summon points) Same as above but on Ripperdactyl. Increases friendly Ripperdactyl jaw attacks by 1 with Command Ability. Unlike Skink Chief on Stegadon, the ability is not restricted to once per unit.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Engine-of-the-Gods-en.pdf Engine of the Gods]:''' (Skink; Artillery; Behemoth; 260pts; 18 Summon points) Replaces everything we said about the Priest from above with a fucking Triceratops and a table: you roll a number of D6 that depends on if the Slann is near it (2 usually, a Slann within 12" allows you to throw an extra dice) and you can either damage yourself, heal yourself, damage a single unit or many units (this used to be two separate types of attacks, now you have to choose one, which is far more consistent), summon 10 Saurus Warriors (this is an actual NERF. On the first iteration, it allowed you to place one unit of ANY kind, then just some of a pool of four units, now only Warriors). It's totally random, but almost all of its effects are deadly as fuck. Given how you need a Slann to make 3D roll, you will usually get the healing effect, and a good chance of attaking. Only with a Slann nearby you get the possibility of summoning Warriors, and only rolling 3 6s you can get the double attack buff. It's a bunch of skinks on a GIANT DINOSAUR! Why aren't you playing it? Rolling an 18 on the table has been updated and no longer grants a second turn, instead, it gives all of your units wholly within 24" double attacks and reroll charge rolls. Still good, but not quite as cool. [[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure | Instead of shouting out of your lunges '''ZA WARUDO!!!!''', now you have to shout '''MADE IN HEAVEN!!!!''']]. Also also, these guys now gain +1 to the save rolls against one unit they are fighting that has up to 5 models. This is a welcome increase to your chances of survival against elite units, heroes or monster hunters.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Stegadon-en.pdf Skink chief on Stegadon]:''' (Skink; Behemoth; 270pts; 24 Summon points) Same as Stegadon, but also a Hero. Receives some more attacks with Warspear and a Command Ability to give one SKINK unit wholly within 24" a bonus attack for all melee weapons.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Skink-Oracle-on-Troglodon-en.pdf Skink Oracle on Troglodon]:''' (Skink; Oracle; Behemoth; 260pts; 18 Summon points) No longer the loser it was in WFB. This blind Spinosaurus has the ability to use both range and melee decently. Its Skink Oracle rider is now a fully-fledged WIZARD and can draw upon Slann powers, receiving the Comet's Call spell, unlimited unbind range and +1 to rolls for casts, dispels and unbind attempts! It can be hilariously fast since its ranged attack gives it a reroll charge distance. It gets a bunch of decent attacks in melee and causes enemies within 3" to subtract 1 from their bravery. On top of that, it seems that now GW uses the word "'''Trog'''" as a synonym for "''regeneration''", [[Awesome|since now this mofo can heal D3 wounds per turn]]. It can be fun to watch these bifid-tail fellows snowballing out of control if your enemy somehow let them unchecked. Cool sculpt; jack of all trades, master of none tho, it might have used here and there, but you sadly will find someone who does the job better most of the. <s>Thankfully</s> Unfortunately it is the <s>cheapest</s> most expensive of the dinos available, due to the buffs. so it could (not) make up a nice filler piece. What you can't take away from him is being somewhat tanky Slann range extender that won't mind being in melee.

===Battleline===

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Warriors-en.pdf Saurus Warriors]:''' (Battleline; Saurus; 90/320pts; Min:10; Max:40; 12 Summon points for a unit of 10, 18 for a unit of 20) Saurus Warriors are one of the best Battleline units of any faction, period. With Bravery 8 (10 if STARBORNE), 4+ Save, two melee weapon attacks, they're rock solid. Get +1 attack to their hand weapon if the unit has 15+ models, Nice. Only the meanest Heros and Monsters will kill them fast; in every other circumstance, you can rely on them to [[get shit done]]. Tarpitting things, holding objectives, killing hordes, or anything you want, they will do it, and do it well. Make them the anchor of your army, and you won't be disappointed.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Guard-en.pdf Saurus Guards]:''' (Conditional battline: Seraphon army; Saurus; 100pts; Min:5; Max:20; 12 Summon points for a unit of 5) Nice to guard any hero, allowing guard unit to intercept wounds from heroes on 2+. SG hit and wound on 3+ with their halberds, make two attacks apiece, and rend at -1, plus those bite attacks that are can make for one or two extra wounds, they hit very very hard. Unfortunately, they can only be summoned in groups of five, so they make poor reinforcements. Note: These guys last long as shit against anything not designed for mowing down infantry thanks to the above rules. There is even a video in which a single temple guard lasts four rounds with a runeson on magmadroth, the first two rounds completely solo.
**They two wounds per model, and they come in units of multiple of 5, and they also lost the -1 Rend ignore rule, so better give them an anti-magic umbrella if you want them alive, or simply don't bring them if you expect heavy MW opposition.
** Also, see alternate opinion on Saurus Warriors, above.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Saurus-Knights-en.pdf Saurus Knights]:''' (Conditional battline: Seraphon army; Saurus; 100pts; Min:5; Max:20; 12 Summon points for a unit of 5) A bunch of lizards riding lizards, each able to be armed with a bevy of tools. They are proper cavalry now, instead of elite infantry: they finally move at 8". Have Weapon choice to hit on 3s or get bonus damage on the charge. Run a Scar-Vet on Cold One with a Skink Starpriest to Bite enemy devour Peasants in a blink of an Eye.
** Also, see alternate opinion on Saurus Warriors, above.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Skinks-en.pdf Skinks]:''' (Conditional battline: Seraphon army; Skinks; 60pts; Min:10; Max:40; 6 Summon points for a unit of 10) They get a +1 attack if the unit has 15+ models. They are stupidly fast for infantry (seriously, now they might as well be our ranged skirmish "cavalry", [[Ork|it looks like they got all painted in red]]) and not that squishy because of their shields, unlike the plenty of skirmishers of the game. They Nurfed by no longer having the retreat ability. they are still a good ranged harassing and objective Holding/Stealing unit. Sadly, their Bravery got nerfed to the ground: 5. You don't have to worry if you are Starborne. You HAVE to worry if you are Coalesend.
** The standard box comes with the pieces to build 24 Skinks, and the SC! set comes with 12, though, with a bit of kitbashing, you can turn those 4 extras into a team of Skink Handlers and a Priest. Or better yet, as you accumulate things like Terradons and Stegadons, you will also get some spare Skinks from them, so you can make even more regular Skinks. Maybe you can tweak their pieces a little bit to be the Alphas of the unit, making them stand out in the battlefield. This is one of the boons of this hobby, especially for a faction like ours.

===Other===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Chameleon-Skinks-en.pdf Chameleon Skinks]:''' (Skinks; 90pts; Min:5; Max:20; 12 Summon points for a unit of 5) They can teleport into and out of reserve instead of moving (except during the 4th battle round). Also, have a 3+ save in cover, and shooting attacks deal a mortal wound on a 6 to hit.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Terradon-Riders-en.pdf Terradon Riders]:''' (Skinks; 120pts; Min:3; Max:12; 12 Summon points for a unit of 3) First flying cavalry. Once per game they drop mortal wound-causing boulders on units they passed through in Movement Phase, Sunleech Bolas make d6 attacks. Used as Flying Harassing Shooting and Objective Grabbing with its 16" of movement. NOTE: New battletome nerfed them hard but made them dirt-cheap too. As an additional bonus, building this sprue makes for some of the most gorgeous models in GW.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Ripperdactyl-Riders-en.pdf Ripperdactyl Riders]:''' (Skinks; 140pts; Min:3; Max:12; 12 Summon points for a unit of 3) The other vicious flying one. How they massacred my boys. They can make a lot of beak attacks, making 3 attacks that explode on 6 to hit and which once per battle rerolls hits when near an enemy near a materializing Bloat Toad. Six of these guys make for 18 (24 for Coalesced) beak attacks. Nasty. Wizards don't stand a chance. They used to make an extra attack per succesful attack, [[Skub|but not anymore]]. As an additional disadvantage, building this sprue makes for some of the most ridiculous models in GW.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Salamander-Hunting-Pack-en.pdf Salamanders]:''' (Skink; Artillery; 80pts; Min:4; Max:12; 6 Summon points) Fucking hell, these guys are deadly. They make four shooting attacks now rather than using a template, but that shot hits and wounds on 3+ and does D3 DAMAGE! A unit of these guys can really mess up an enemy monster or character. In addition, any hit rolls of 6 stop the attack sequence and deal D3 mortal wounds instead. Did I mention it has rending -2? Yeah, -2. Because fuck your enemies. Handlers are now the part of the unit and serve no purpose other than ablative wounds and the range is always 12".

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Razordon-Hunting-Pack-en.pdf Razordons]:''' (Skink; Artillery; 80pts; Min: 4; Max:12; 6 Summon points) Another ranged unit, Razordons make 2d6 attacks at 18" which gain rending -1 within 6". In addition, it can fire D6 more spicks when charged or charges, and that is still on a decent fighter.
** Alternate Opinion: Razordons are, pound for pound, the best unit in the Seraphon faction, bar none. These are basically the only units I have that my regular opponents are actually afraid of. In practice, their stat line makes them capable of some truly punishing fire. They are terrifying to charge, both because of instinctive defense overwatch shots and, well, being in melee with them means you are a captive target for their positively punishing shooting attacks (plus rending). They aren't great in melee per se, but they aren't helpless either. The same goes for their durability. They aren't really tanky by any stretch of the imagination, but just survivable enough that they can hold something up for at least a turn or two. Also, smart use of Lords of Space and Time teleportation in conjunction with razordon shooting is often referred to as the "Razorbomb" tactic and is an absolute joy to play. Razordons rule. Razordons for president.
*** The new battletome makes everything above apply to salamanders, actually. Razordons have a higher range and more shots, but salamanders less random and have better Rend and Damage and mortal wound potential.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Kroxigors-en.pdf Kroxigor]:''' (140pts; Min: 3; Max:12; 18 Summon points for a unit of 3) Melee beatsticks that have 4 hammer attacks. 1 in 3 can take a moonhammer(4+/3+/-1/2D), instead of gaining attacks equal to all enemies within its 2" range. If their bite hits on unmodified 6, it deals a mortal wound in addition to any damage. If any Skink unit is within 3" of the Krox, they add 1 to hit rolls. Wrap them up with a Skink Cohort and let the Kroxigor hammer.

===Behemoth===

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Stegadon-en.pdf Stegadon]:''' (Conditional Battline: Thunder Lizards army; Skink; Behemoth; 240pts; 24 Summon points) A monster triceratops that buffs skinks and aren't too shabby in combat itself. Unlike the Carnosaur, the Stegadon seems more fit for range combat with all the ranged attacks it gets. Unlike the next monster, however, it can defend itself in combat a decent amount. Either take a Giant bow (24"/3A/4+/3+/-1/3) or What stands out most is its Sunfire Throwers. Remember those giant blowpipes? Yeah well, we replaced the darts with FIYAAAA! Basically they're now flamethrowers, and instead of making an attack, you have to throw dice for every model in the targeted unit that is in range. On 5+ it suffers a mortal wound. Against Ogres? Not so good. Against a massive horde of zombies? Fuck me, that's a lot of attacks. Also, this guys roll 1 dice per enemy unit within 1" after charging. On a 3+, it makes D3 mortal wounds. This works better than the last iteration, and is also now exclusive for this Steggies, not for the EotG. And really, what's more metal than a giant war-dinosaur piloted by smaller dinosaurs with fucking flamethrowers? Nothing. Also also, this guy now gains +1 to the save rolls if against one unit they are fighting that has up to 5 models. This is a welcome increase to your chances of survival against elite units, heroes and monsters hunters.
**Note, however, that you have to be more than 3" from enemy units unless you are in close combat. This reduces the effective range to mere 5". The lores have two spells with similar effects, which makes bow loadout a little more appealing.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Bastiladon-en.pdf Bastiladon]:''' (Conditional Battline: Thunder Lizards army; Skink; Behemoth; 220pts; 24 Summon points) OH BOY, this dinosaur got some major tweaking. Some buffs and some nerfs. Just like the glass being half empty or half full, if it was nerfed or buffed, depends on the eye of the beholder. [[Meme|Some might argue that this changes are perfectly balanced, as all things should be]]. A crazy tanky ankylosaur monster. [[Awesome|It has a GIANT CRYSTAL POWERED LASER on its back or can send out snakes for mortal wounds]]. However, this is a ranged beast. 24" range, 9 attacks with -1 rend that do 2 damage? [[Just as planned|Now they also got 2 extra wounds by default (for a total of 10 wounds), and start WITH A FUCKING SAVE OF +1]]. [[Not as planned|This guys used to have a +4 FNP, but not anymore, and now they have a damage table with diminishing stats: making the saves worst by -1 each time they take 2 wounds, up to a +4 save, and both weapons will make less and less attacks the more damage the Bastie gets]]. Solar Engine used to make 2D6 attacks, so having a default 9 attacks is an actual buff; a stable number of attacks and not being trolled by dice suddenly wanting to make a 2 for you. The Arc of Sotek used to technically make infinite attacks, once per model, but it was never a reallistic scenario, so making multiple to different or the same model is actually another buff, however, it is now a "melee" weapon with 3" range, instead of the old 8" bubble. This is... something that makes it work differently.
** Watch out for mortal wounds! With 4+ feel no pain is gone, the only mortal wound defense for this guys is mere Astrolith Bearer's aura of 6+ wound negation. Enemies can hurt it with mortal wounds, reduce its save and then finish off in close combat. Any time it suffers 5 or more wounds, you want to heal it as soon as possible. Sticking a bound Emerald Lifeswarm near it maybe not a bad idea.

{{anchor|FWDread}}
*'''[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos-warscroll-Dread-Saurian.pdf Dread Saurian] (Forge World)''' (Behemoth; 510pts; 50 Summon points): So you have more gold than an entire Starhost and want to show it? Fine, do it. This freshly updated 3-kilogram beast is now 510 points, with a STAGGERING 35 wounds and a 4+ save. At full health, it has Gargantuan Jaws (2"/3/3+/3+/-2/'''STRAIGHT FREAKING 6'''), Raking Claws (2"/6/2+/3+/-1/2) and Armoured Tail (2"/1/4+/3+/-1/D6). It also shrugs off magic on a 6+ (4+ if there's a Slann within 12") and when it charges, it does damage on a 2+, for D3 to {{AOSKeyword|MONSTERS}} and D6 to non-MONSTERS. When it goes down, each unit within 3" that isn't a {{AOSKeyword|MONSTER}} gets to roll. On a 4+, that unit takes D3 damage. It ALSO can, once a battle at the start of the battleshock phase, reduce all enemy bravery within 12" to HALF, which triggers before its always present -1 to bravery, meaning you can drop that Daemon squad from 10 Bravery to 4 for their battleshock phase.
** Throw this bad boy into a Coalesced army and watch him go HAM. 35 wounds, taking 1 less damage from every attack? Thing's a beast in more ways than one.

===Scenery===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//Seraphon_warscroll_Realmshaper-Engine-en.pdf Realmshaper Engine]:''' The obligatory setpiece exclusive to this army like the Ossiarch Bone-Tithe Nexus, this is a giant Aztec Pyramid that can garrison up to 20 wounds, and your wizard or priest can live on. During a Hero phase, you can have them select one terrain setpiece on the field. Roll a d6 for each enemy unit within 3" of the setpiece, adding +2 if this is all within 18" of the engine and subtracting 2 if the setpiece is beyond 36" of the engine; on a 4+, the unit suffers D3 mortal wounds.
**Note that currently this scenery piece is an extremely shitty one. It is set up before territory is determined and must be placed 6 inches away from other terrain. This is a fairly large scenery piece so this is fairly difficult to accomplish. And if your opponent wins the roll off for table edge they can pick the side you've placed your engine on and garrison themselves inside of it. They cannot shoot you with it's power unless they are using seraphon models but they can still start with units inside of it.

===Endless Spells===
Worth mentioning. We didn't really get any exclusive spells/summons like the other re-released armies, but our Endless Spells Preadatory are now controlled only by us. The enemy will no longer send our Purple Suns back to us.

==Battalions==
===From Battletome Seraphon===

NOTE: All battalions changed in the new battletome. Infomation below is outdated ATM.

'''Sunclaw Starhost:''' (130pts; Min:520pt; Max:1240pts)
''1 Sunblood + 3 Saurus Warriors''
*They all get an extra attack on their bite and their weapons gain -1 rending and 2 damage against daemons. Meh. Least it's easy to build.
**Alternate opinion, while this Battalion is mediocre, not only will you almost certain already have the units for it, extra attacks are always useful, but the most important bit is it's the base for much better Fangs of Sotek Battalion, so build it so it's always on hand!

'''Eternal Starhost:''' (150pts; Min:530pt; Max: 1250)
''1 Eternity Warden + 3 packs of Saurus Guard. ''
*All Guard gain +1 to their save when near the Warden and if they don't move, their polearms get d3 damage. This benefit still works even if your Saurus Guards pile in this Combat Phase. Since the Guards already have 4+ saves, when they get close enough to the Warden they increase it to 3+, and then, the battalion increases it again to 2+. Keep in mind, however, that they still die quite fast to Mortal Wounds.

'''Firelance Starhost:''' (150pts; Min: 490pts; Max: 1350pts)
''A Scar-Vet on a Carnosaur or Cold One leads 3 packs of Knights'''
*Any Knights near the Hero add +3 to their charges and if they roll a 6 to wound with their Celestite weapons following that charge, it becomes Mortal, which also stacks onto the rules for spears. This can be scary.

'''Shadowstrike Starhost:''' (180pts; Min:520pt. Max: 1700pts)
''A Skink Starpriest or a Skink Priest takes two units of the following list: Skinks or Chameleon Skinks; as well as one unit of either Terradon Riders or Ripperdactyl Riders.''
*You get three abilities: '''Stealthy Advance''': You roll 2D6 for every unit in this battalion after setup and move it up to at most these inches. '''The Trap is Sprung''': Your Priest picks a visible enemy unit and marks it in your hero phase. All units in this battalion reroll hit and wound rolls of 1 against that unit until your next hero phase. '''Strike from the Skies''': Instead of setting up your Terradon or Ripperdactyl Riders, you can hold them in reserve and set them up in any of your movement phases at least 3" away from any enemy. The unit will add 1 to their wound rolls in the following combat phase. It might be a good idea to pick Ripperdactyl Riders instead of Terradon Riders for their superior melee stat and the toad rage ability (since they can swoop down right next to the toad).

'''Thunderquake Starhost:''' (120pts; Min: 750pt; Max:1520pts) '' Troglodon or Engine of the Gods + two of any combo of either Stegadons or Bastilodons + either Kroxigor or a Salamander/Razordon with Handlers.''
*this one's got a lot of variety for a formation. The biggest Unit (Troglodon/EotG) and anyone nearby can either gain re-rolls to hit/charge or re-rolls to wound/save. To make this even more insane, everyone here heals a wound in the Hero phase, upping to d3 wounds when next to a Slann.

==Super-Battalions==
===From Battletome Seraphon===
*'''Starbeast Constellation:''' (230pts; 3570pt. min.) An Oldblood (On foot or Carnosaur) and a Starseer add in every other Starhost, making a massive Strike Force Ultra. Aside from every other bonus here, <s>the Oldblood also gets the ability to use his Command Ability at all times while also enabling anyone within 20" to use theirs as well.</s> New edition rules change introduce command points to use command abilities, so the Battalion's ability now gives you D3+1 command points at the beginning of the battle

==Army Building==

<s>(''Note: '''''WE NEED TO UPDATE THIS LISTS. THEY ARE 4 YEARS OLD BY NOW'''''</s> Working on updates and linkages. What a better way to start the decade than updating us, the first faction to get introduced (after Sigmarines and Khorne Bloodbounds) to the AoS parade as a whole?

The point here is to share and <s>rape, pillage, and steal</s> collaborate ideas to build an army on shape, but you should think about playing what you like the most (as always, fun is first, as long as you don't act like [[That Guy]]). Also, we'll try to suggest you easy ways to get a strong force while trying to save the most money possible, which shouldn't be that hard, since [[GW]] have been releasing bundles with decent saving on a constant basis <s>WHAT KIND OF [[HERESY]] IS THIS?</s>''). Keep in mind that with all the different special rules, opponents may get a bit tired of hearing Seraphon ignore that (e.g. Slann wizards can dispell or unbind spells anywhere on the battlefield). Sucks to be them.

===The Art of Summoning===
Credit due to [http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/the-art-of-summoning.22178/ Lustria Online forums].
Basic build information:

* Slann--Main frog. Forgo all spell casting, generates 9 CCP/turn (generates 10 CCP/turn if Slann is your General). Best to take with Great Rememberer for double LoSaT.
* Lord Kroak--THE MAIN frog. Could easily generate 13 CCP/turn (4 spells instead of 3 for Slann). Typically want to use him for his specific spell casting (especially with difference of +190 points versus vanilla Slann) instead of CCP.
* Either way, as previous previously, playing a Seraphon army without a frog is just playing the game wrong.
* Astrolith Bearer--Gives 1d3 CCP/turn. Gives the variable for getting over the 24 CCP at beginning of turn 2 with Slann + Astolith Bearer combo.
* Endless Spell Balewind Vortex--One additional spell translates to 3 additional CCP.
* Endless Spell Chronomantic Cogs--One additional spell translates to 3 additional CCP. Also can flip to the +2 move/charge to help get that Carnosaur you are going to summon engaged.
* Engine of the Gods--While not contributing to the CCP, does have independent summoning abilities. If you are going to create a summoning list, might as well go all in.

The basic summoning list would include a Slann and an AB. No casting and by Turn 2 you get 20 + 2d3 CCPs (66% chance to summon your big dinos (Carnosaur, Stegadon, Bastiladon)

Aside from the EotG, a heavy summoning list includes Slann, AB, Vortex, Starpriest, and a Cogs (casted by the Starpriest and used by the Slann). By Turn 2, if you totally forego casting, you can collect up to 29 + 2d3 CCP.

===Matched Play GHB2019 List===
Credit again to [http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/matched-play-list-ghb2019.23300/#post-281635 Lustria Online Matched Play GHB2019] and all the contributors. Below are highlights. Use the link for details, as they are updated in the forums.

'''2000 Point Lists:'''

* Dracothion's Tail/Shadowstrike Starhost--Single drop army with Slann, Oldblood on a Carnosaur, Scar Vet on a Cold one, and Starpriest. Add Rippers, Skinks, Knights, and Razors to round out. Alpha strike list with summoning.

* Shadowstrike Starhost--Slann, AB, couple EotG, and Starpriest. Add Rippers, Skinks, and Razors. More summoning focused.

* Thunderquake Starhost--Slann, AB, EotG, and Starpriest. Razors, Skinks, and couple Bastiladons (with friggin LAZORS!!!)

* Kroak+Slann Mortal Wound Spam--Because one frog just ain't enough. Slann, Kroak, AB, Scar Vet on a Cold One, Starpriest, Knight-Incantor. Add Knights and Razors. Move of a casting list to rain down magical goodness on the enemy. Also is 2-drop.

* Fangs of Sotek

* Kroaknado--Kroak, EotG xFOUR, and AB. Add Skinks and Razors. Summon from the EoTG and cast from the frog.

* Shooting--Slann, AB, and Starpriest. Add 3 units of Razor X3, Skinks, and Bastiladons x3 (with friggin LAZORS!!!)

* Eternal Starhost

* Eternal Starhost & Shadowstrike Starhost

* Dracothion's Tail

* Triple Carnosaur

* Dread Saurian w/Dracothion's Tail

'''1500 Point Lists:'''

Dracothion's Tail (@Lizerd's list)

Shadowstrike Starhost

'''1000 Point Lists:'''

Shadowstrike Starhost

Shooting

Sunclaw Starhost

Eternal Starhost

'''Meeting Engagement:'''

Eternal Starhost

Shadowstrike Starhost

Double Carnosaur

Shadowstrike Starhost w/Ripperdactyls

Dread Saurian

Purple Sun

===Start Collecting Buildup===

Arguably the best way to start your army, is get two Start Collecting! boxes. With the advent of now having to chose from both Skinks and Saurus units, now we have some of the best ways to make an army faster and having welcome discounts for buying all the models compared as buying them on their own.

Really, that easy. 2 Saurus Warriors units, 3 Saurus Knights units and an extra Knight that can be converted to a Scar-Veteran on Cold One, and two Carnos/Trog as you want, and 4 extra Warriors that can be used as summoning fodder or conversion material. Also if you're willing to field some cheeky conversions, there's a [http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/getting-the-most-from-your-start-collecting-seraphon-box.20560/ useful post] at Lustria Online that details how to really pimp this kit far beyond GW ever intended, squeezing out a solid 800+ points per box.

From there, you can take many different choices, thanks to how wide is the Seraphon range.

You could simply buy more Start Collecting! boxes, maybe another 3. This is because one box comes with 12 Warriors (because is a relatively old sprue and the regular box has 20 Warriors), so you can have 60 Warriors between the 5 boxes. You will also get another 24 Knights, but they are a pretty viable unit (unlike Oldhammer latests editions), and you will never, ever, will have extra Carnosaurs. They are just beautiful models, worth every cent.

The Thunderbeast Host bundle from GW is also a good way to save around 15% worth in the big boys of the faction: 2 Stegadons, another Carno and one flying unit. Unfortunately out of print. But...now we have a skinks bundle. That gives Seraphon pretty much all their main units save for some heroes in a bundle or convertible! Just remember to pick up a Kroak.

An honorable mention to the Arcane Heroes bundle for Silver Tower: it has a Skink Starpriest, and if you have a friend who could use the other heroes of the kits, or you yourself have another army or small force, its a good purchase.

'''NEW FOR THE NEW BATTLETOME: START COLLECTING! SKINS!''' 12 nimble mini-lizards, with 3 flying cavalry models, who you can use as objective grabers or dive bombers, given their high movement, a Bastie, which means you gets a Bastie, and a Starpriest, which means you get a Starpriest.

So, yeah, you have quite few options to get some Seraphon miniatures in easy to get blocks. '' -Hold on, hold on, are you sure this is [[GW]]?''

===Matched points===

Fortunately, Seraphon have a wide array of units, and everyone is viable.

From a single Start Collecting! you get:

* 100 points from 10 Saurus Warriors.
* 90 points from 5 Saurus Knights. **points updated!**
* 160 points from a Troglodon OR 240 from a Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur OR 260 from a Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur. **points updated!**
*''Total:'' 420 points using a Troglodon OR 480 points using a Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur OR 540 points using an Oldblood on Carnosaur.

Not counting the possible extra models you can use: 100 for a Knight converted or counting as a Scar-Vet on Cold One (damn, you could simply use the 3 extra Knights as Scar-Vets too), 100 from using the free Saurus Oldblood on foot if you buildt a Troglodon and 100 from getting creative to use your Skink Oracle as a Skink Priest or Starpriest, and you could even use Jungle Swarms from the Cold Ones bits if you are allowed.

NOTE AND UPDATE: with general's handbook 2017, every Seraphon unit received an huge discount (Balanced by the fact that their awesome warscroll battalion now cost a lot more). This mean you now can field both a Trog and and Oldblood on Carnosaurus using units in two Start Collecting boxes. Exactly, both. Have fun supporting and attacking with Oldblood and Troglodon while receiving the screening from Warriors and Knights, have fun! A lot!!

===1000 pt.===
Here the core tax is 1 '''Leader''' and 2 '''Battleline''' units, you can have up to 4 '''Leaders''', 2 '''Artilleries''' and 2 '''Behemoths'''. Your minimum tax is 220 points; 2 10-units Skins and a Skink Priest or Starpriest.

Two Start Collecting! kits gives you a quick and easy to get force, as well as a multi-task list, with some spared models to use in larger games.
* 20 Saurus Warriors (Battleline).
* 10 Saurus Knights (Battleline).
* Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur (Leader/Behemoth).
* Saurus Oldblood on Foot (Leader).
* Troglodon (Behemoth).

This uses exactly 1000 points.

This is a heavy focused melee list.

Depending on what you are facing, the Scar-Veteran and the Saurus Oldblood are good generals; excellent weapons and stats. The Saurus Oldblood is more defensive, favouring a stead approach, and the Scar-Vet is generally more offensive.

Use your Warriors in one or two blocks as you wish; you get a +1 To Hit if you have at least 20 on the same unit, but this will last just one turn or even less. Bring them along your Saurus Oldblood on foot if you are using him as your general.

Use two units of Knights, using the weapons you find the most useful. They are quite slow for regular cavalry tho, at 7". Use them as flankers and alongside your Scar-Vet if he is your general.

The Troglodon is a great addition here, since its a jack of all trades. D3 ranged attack with good profile and damage (and the only ranged unit on this list), and get 3" extra if it can charge succesfully and damaged with his poison, which can be quite effective since it has 7 attacks at +4 hit (with enough luck and not having taked so much damage, it can be able to deal 15 wounds on melee), it has its own roar that substracts 1 from enemy Bravery and, most importantly, can unbind one spell just like if it was a wizard (something this list lacks).

Not a specialist, but it [[gets shit done]]. However, never expose it to get 8 or more wounds. Its ranged attack has 18", gets worst if by 3" each time it suffers 2 or more wounds, it gets 1" for each two wounds and its bite starts at +2 to wound, reduces to +3 the next for wounds and get worst by one each time it suffers two additional wounds.

It biggest flaw is that it fills lots of roles. Expect to see some heavy focus upon it.

===2000 pt.===
Here the core tax is 1 '''Leader''' and 3 '''Battleline''' units, you can have up to 6 '''Leaders''', 4 '''Artilleries''' and 4 '''Behemoths'''. Your minimum tax is 260 points; 3 10-units of Skinks (60 points per 10) and one of the following leaders: Saurus Oldblood, Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One, Skink Priest (80 points) or Skink Starpriest.

Keep using 2 Start Collecting! kits, now you can deploy all the models included:

* 20 Saurus Warriors (Battleline).
* 15 Saurus Knights (Battleline).
* Scar-Veteran on Cold One (Leader).
* A Firelance Starhost (using the Cold One Scar-Veteran)
* Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur (Leader/Behemoth).
* Saurus Oldblood on Foot (Leader)
* Troglodon (Behemoth).

This alone costs 1340 points. But if you can replace the Oldblood on foot or [[Counts as|count it as]], you can pick a Saurus Sunblood for 20 additional points.

Now, lets assume you also got a Thunderbeast Host kit, now add:

* An Engine of the Gods (Leader/Behemoth).
* 1 Stegadon (Behemoth).
* 3 Terradon/Ripperdactyls Riders.

This will costs 1980 points, or 2000 if you play a Sunblood instead the Oldblood on foot.

Other option is use a Skink Priest or Starpriest instead the Oldblood on foot: you will have one spare Priest from building a Stegadon anyway, and with some convertion you could use your spare Oracle as one of those two. You can get a Starpriest if you wish, its a nice little sculpt.

This list features more ranged options.

Having 16 Cold One Knights, you can easily convert one into a Scar-Vet and make a Firelance. The Scar-Vet on Cold One is a good choice for a general because his command ability synergizes strongly with the Knights: re-rolling hits and charges is important, more considering how the Blazing Lances stacks with Blazing Cohort (yet another mortal wound), and the Cold Ones gain an additional attack. This battalion can easily snowball if left unchecked.

While lacking the Stardrake Shield, the Oldblood on Carno might be a little more killy than the Scar-Veteran by virtue of his sunbolt beams, while his spear is still as good as the regular. His command ability is strong for heroic wrecking balls.

The Thunderbeast models are great supportive options: the Engine of the Gods speaks for itself and the Stegadon can deal a good amount of AoE or single target damage. Both of them should be keeping distances when not overly necessary, but can be dangerous when charging towards the enemy. The flying cavalry is quite useful. Terradons should be prefered by virtue of their ranged attacks, while the Ripperdactlys can dish out important damage for evasive but fragile enemy units.

The Oldblood on foot is a strong support for your Saurus, even without its command ability. The Sunblood is [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|a big, bulky, scary lizard, able to soak decent amounts of damage and dealing it back]]. The Skink Star/Priest are reliable support options; the Priest can be a strong buff machine, while the Starpriest is a cheap wizard that can help your units with magic.

As a bonus, deploying this whole army should be a sight to behold!

====[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/03/05/stegageddon-the-final-form-of-listbuildinggw-homepage-post-2/ STEGAGEDDON]====
'''WARNING''': This is a GW invention, and even they admit this is more of a [[meme]] list than anything else. So basically, yeah, we Order Beastclaw Raiders now. [[AWESOME|Just with a herd of rampanging Stegadons]]. This also quite a throwback to WHFB 7th edition, with the old dead meme of "replace X, add Stegas".

* Field a '''Coalesced Thunder Lizard''' army. This already sounds as pleasing as you guess.

* Because of this, Steggies are now '''BATTLELINE''' instead of '''BEHEMOTH''', so you will need '''FOUR'''. Yes, you'll need money. Yes, you'll won't regret it. Equip them with a healthy blend of Skystreak Bows (A whooping 25" range, 3 attacks, 4+/3+/-1/D3) and Sunfire Throwers (A bubble of 8" 3+/3+/-/1). Remember, this celestial flamethrowers '''MAKE AN ATTACK FOR EACH MODEL IN RANGE'''. This will deter your enemy from sending units with low wounds and plenty of models against you, [[Meme|will dissapoint hordes icomesurably, and their day will be ruined]].

* Get yet another Steggie, and give him a Skink Chief as commander. His/it command ability lets you pick 1 '''SKINK''' unit per phase, wholly between 2" of range, and adds 1 to the attacks it can made with melee weapons. All Steggies, being crewed by Skinks, get this keyword, so you can trample all over your enemies with a little extra dinomight. Nice.

* Grab two Engines of the Gods. Remember the mantra of our enlightened Slann Masters: ''More Stegs, more fun''. This will give you the needed support you lacked so far. The effects from ''Cosmic Engine'' will get tweaked, since the article says that now rolls of 4-8 heal D3 wounds to nearby units. This means that the single lazor beam or the [[dakka]] whirpool will get modified. We only have to wait two weeks more, and the Engines will still rock, so no prob.

* The article here suggest you to pick a Bastie with Solar Engine (but you can technically still use other Stega). This to use it in tandem with a new Command Ability: ''TROVE OF OLD ONE TECHNOLOGY''. Per phase, an unit can use their Engines (Solar or Cosmic) once again. If ''Cosmic'', '''this means it can heal D6 wounds''', or get another chance to shoot cosmic [[dakka]] to your enemies. If ''Solar'', this means '''[[Dakka|you effectively will shoot 18 attacks PER SHOOTING PHASE]]'''.

'''1970 POINTS OF SAURIAN STOMPS!''' This of course means some problems: you will not cover the whole battlefield, you relly on '''MONSTER'''S that get diminishing stats as they get hurt, and you will be slow as Nurgle after a nightover. They also say that you can try tweaking the list adding a Slann and some Star Skink (priest or seers, so maybe the seers will get a buff to make them actually viable, even for a meme list), but this list is just a paleo-sight to behold, and an inversion worth every single cent. And if you have played [[Total War: Warhammer|Total Warhammer II]], you already know how sastifying is to send a herd of Steggies to wipe clean a horde of pesky ratmen.

Who knows? this might be the dawn of a new Stega-Meta!

===2500 pt.===
Here the core tax is 1 '''Leader''' and 4 '''Battleline''' units, you can have up to 8 '''Leaders''', 5 '''Artilleries''' and 5 '''Behemoths'''. Your minimum tax is 320 points ; 4 10-units Skins and one of the following leaders: Saurus Oldblood, Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One, Skink Priest or Skink Starpriest.

From the previous example list, not much more to add here.

If you picked a Sunblood, you could get third Warriors unit and upgrade them to a Sunclaw Starhost. Add a Slann Starmaster is a fantastic idea; 3 spells/unbinds, can cast through skink heroes and Troglodons at 15" away and buff your whole army.

This costs 2440 points. If your place allows older scrolls, you could pick a Skink Chief to close at 2500.

==Allied Armies==
Stormcast Eternals and now Sylvaneth. Fluff-wise, it makes sense: Sigmarines hate Chaos as much as we do, and Sylvaneth and us are kinda... sorta... forma... forces of nature.

===Mercenary Companies===
With the inclusion of Mercenary Companies in GHB2019, These guys now have slightly more allied unit options.
*'''Blacksmoke Battery:''' With these guys, your [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs]] become [[Awesome|Aztec lizardmen riding dinosaurs with guns and a chopper]]
*'''Greyfyrd:''' The Fyreslayers ally you never had, essentially.
*'''Grugg Brothers:'''
*'''Gutstuffers:'''
*'''Nimyard’s Rough-Riders:'''
*'''Order of the Blood-Drenched Rose:''' Excellent calvary unit to go with your already excellent cavalry units.
*'''Rampagers:'''
*'''Skroug’s Menagerie:'''
*'''Sons of the Lichemaster:'''
*'''Tenebrous Court:'''

==External links==
Rules are here
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
Here are links to all the warscrolls for the army, in the same order as they are listed in the article.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

* [http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-lizardmen-en.pdf Their Warscroll Compendium]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-lordkroak-en.pdf Lord Kroak]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-slannstarmaster-en.pdf Slann Starmaster]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-saurusoldblood-en.pdf Saurus Oldblood (On Foot)]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-oldbloodcarnosaur-en.pdf Saurus Oldblood (On Carnosaur)]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-veterancarnosaur-en.pdf Scar Veteran (On Carnosaur)]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-veterancoldone-en.pdf Scar Veteran (On Cold One)]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-saurussunblood-en.pdf Saurus Sunblood]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-astrolithbearer-en.pdf Astrolith Bearer]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-eternitywarden-en.pdf Eternity Warden]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-sauruswarriors-en.pdf Saurus Warriors]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-saurusguard-en.pdf Saurus Guard]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-saurusknights-en.pdf Saurus Knights]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-skinkstarseer-en.pdf Skink Starseer]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-skinkstarpriest-en.pdf Skink Starpriest]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-skinkpriest-en.pdf Skink Priest]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-skinks-en.pdf Skinks]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-chameleonskinks-en.pdf Chameleon Skinks]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-terradonriders-en.pdf Terradon Riders]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-ripperdactylriders-en.pdf Ripperdactyl Riders]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-salamander-en.pdf Salamander]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-razordon-en.pdf Razordon]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-kroxigor-en.pdf Kroxigor]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-engineofthegods-en.pdf Engine]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-stegadon-en.pdf Stegadon]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-bastiladon-en.pdf Bastiladon]

* [https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-troglodon-en.pdf Troglodon]

</div></div>

*[http://www.lustria-online.com/ Lustria-Online.com, the main Seraphon army forum.]
{{Age_of_Sigmar_Tactics}}
[[Category:Age of Sigmar]] [[Category:Age of Sigmar/Tactics]]

Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Order/Daughters of Khaine

2020-03-14T14:25:00Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* Why play Daughters of Khaine? */

{{Age of Sigmar Faction|Faction=Daughters of Khaine|Logo=Daughters_of_Khaine_battletome_art.jpg|Alliance=Order|Motto=Much bloodier and less NSFW than it appears.}}

==Why play Daughters of Khaine?==

===Pros===

* They are [[Hot Chicks]] and [[Monstergirl|Monstergirls]] in bikinis (except the Doomfire Warlocks and Avatars of Khaine, but those are not mandatory units).
* You like the idea of playing an army of bloodthirsty, fanatical murderers but don't like Khorne.
* Morathi is one of the most powerful models in the game. Her main form is almost at the level of the [[Alarielle the Everqueen|big]] [[Archaon|god-like]] [[Nagash|models]].
* With the right unit choices your army is exclusively [[Hot Chicks]] and [[Monstergirl|Monstergirls]] in bikinis!
* Some of the best melee in the setting; offensively they rival the [[Flesh-Eater Courts|crazy cannibals]] or the [[Khorne Bloodbound|Khorne Flakes]] in combat.
* They're a jack-of-all-trades able to fight in every phase with melee, shooting, magic, decent movement and bravery shenanigans.
* You like the continuation of Morathi's story arc, and want to see her make her mark on the setting.
* A monster that DOESN'T GET LESS EFFECTIVE IF IT TAKES WOUNDS (that also double as a giant angry statue of their god).
* Plenty of movement tricks. Your basic troops (Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter) have the ability to run and charge with only a musician, everything else except the heroes and Cauldron of Blood/Bloodwrack Shrines have movement 8-14, you can reroll 1s to run turn 1, 1s to charge turn 2, plus Deep Striking Khinerai, Khailebron's deep striking ability and Lore of Shadows spells that boost movement.
* The new rules for shooting at characters give the enemy -1 to hit unless the target is a monster. Think the Cauldron of Blood or the Bloodwrack Shrine would count? Nope, they're not Monsters. Keep them close to a unit and watch them get to combat unmolested.
* The Cauldron of Blood, with the right combination of relics, Command Traits and prayers is straight busted, coming in with a nightmarish amount of damage output both in shooting and close combat, powerful support abilities and the ability to heal itself through multiple avenues for 300-330 points.
* Did I mention all of the [[Hot Chicks]] and [[Monstergirl|Monstergirls]] in bikinis?

===Cons===

* These chicks are almost as naked as the fyreslayers, but they dont have fancy runes or 2 wounds to tide them over. Apart from their 6+ fanatical faith save, they have the usual Glass Cannon problem of being flimsy. Our Infantry has a 6+ Save, and the other units - apart from Morathi - are softer than their equivalents in other armies unless you make the right choices (such as Hagg Narr and/or throw in a Cauldron).
* They are rather expensive to collect in dollars, and even spending lots of money on models can still leave you with a comparatively low model count.
* Their shooting is limited and overall mediocre.
* They do not play well with others. If you're playing Daughters of Khaine, you're playing them in a Daughters of Khaine Allegiance army. They are incredibly reliant on their faction abilities to turn them from a bunch of expensive fragile units with some pretty good close combat into a unified army with some of the most brutal close combat in the game. You can ally other stuff into them, don't ally them with other stuff. (Not entirely true, Khinari Heartrenders slot nicely into most Order soup lists as its a good deepstrike bully unit)
* Not a magic heavy army. Bar Morathi (who is mostly in monster form) you only have the Bloodwrack Medusa, who only gives you one spell/dispel per turn without relics or artifacts, and the Doomfire Warlocks who can be very powerful, but get expensive in blocks of 10 (which is what you want).

==Rulebooks==
{{AOSRulebooks|tome=Daughters of Khaine|points=[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/5ae12374.pdf Daughters of Khaine Errata]}}

==Allegiance Abilities==
===Battle Traits===
; Fanatical Faith : Daughters of Khaine can ignore wounds allocated to them on a 6+. Sweet.
;Blood Rites : The fantasy variant of "Power From Pain". Every turn your units get a brand new special rule that stacks for the rest of the game.
:#'''Quickening Bloodlust:''' Reroll run rolls of 1.
:#'''Headlong Fury:''' Reroll dice rolls of 1 when charging.
:#'''Zealot's Rage:''' Rerolls 1s to hit. In addition, an Avatar of Khaine always counts as being animated.
:#'''Slaughterer's Strength:''' Reroll 1s to wound. Note that neither this nor turn 3 say "In close combat" so feel free to reroll those shots with your Blood Stalkers.
:#'''Unquenchable Fervour:''' Your units rerolls saves of 1, and do not need to take battleshock tests.

===Command Traits===
#'''Bathed in Blood:''' Increase your wound characteristic by 1 and you can heal 1 wound at the start of each hero phase. Good on a Cauldron of Blood, but there are better ways to get your wounds back.
#'''Zealous Orator:''' Friendly units within 14 inches can use the General's Bravery. Pairs well with a Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood for Bravery 10, which lets you easily get the extra damage from Mindrazor off against most units in the game.
#'''Bloody Sacrificer:''' Add 1 to the hit rolls of the General's weapons. Lot of good options here, but this seems like a waste of a Command Trait, given you can have other better options.
#'''Terrifying Beauty:''' Subtract 1 on hit rolls against the General. Putting this on the Cauldron of Blood will drive your opponent insane. Stacks with the existing -1 against shooting for heroes close to a unit, meaning that everyone shooting at you will have a -2 to hit you.
#'''Mistress of Poisons:''' Add 1 to the General's weapons Damage characteristics. A Slaughter Queen with this will wipe out a unit a turn.
#'''True Believer:''' Ups the turn number for the unit's Blood Rites. Good to get an Avatar of Khaine awake turn 2 and just generally a good choice.

===Gifts of Morathi===
(Can be given to any Daughter of Khaine Hero)
#'''Crown of Woe:''' Subtract 1 from the bravery of enemy units within 7". This range doubles to 14" the first time the bearer slays an enemy model.
#'''Cursed Blade:''' One of the bearers melee weapons adds +1 to hit rolls. If the result is ever 7+ then the weapon does 1 mortal wound instead of the normal damage.
#'''Amulet of Dark Fire:''' The bearer negates mortal wounds inflicted '''by spells''' on a 4+.
#'''Crone Blade:''' One of the bearers melee weapons heals the user by 1 wound each time it slays an enemy model.
#'''Thousand and One Dark Blessings:''' The bearer gains +1 to saves. This should probably be your default option since you'll always have a use for it, and DoK suffer from mediocre saves in general. Makes Heroes mounted on an Cauldron of Blood difficult to take down without a lot of rend or mortal wounds.
#'''Bloodbane Venom:''' If the bearer wounds an opponent but does not slay them, roll a dice after the attacks have been made. If the number equals/beats the victim's wound characteristic then it is slain outright.

===Artefacts of Shadow===
(Daughters of Khaine Wizards, meaning Bloodwrack Medusa since Doomfire Warlocks and Morathi can't take Relics, only)
#'''Shadow Stone:''' Re-Roll dice rolls of 1 for Casting attempts and add +1 to any casting attempts for Lore of Shadows spells. Helpful for making sure you get an important spell off. +1 to Casting the Withering is '''never''' a bad thing. Best way to get Mindrazor off.
#'''Rune of Ulgu:''' Bearer knows one extra Lore of Shadows spell. More options are never a bad thing.
#'''The Mirror Glaive:''' Each time the Bearer unbinds a spell, they can attempt to cast Arcane Bolt or Mystic Shield as if it was the Hero phase. If successful this spell can't be unbound. Sounds awesome but the Medusa can only attempt to unbind one spell a turn. Situational.
#'''Seven-fold Shadow:''' Once per battle, instead of moving you can set them up anywhere on the battlefield more than 9" from Enemy units. This uses up thier movement phase. You already have dozens of ways of teleporting units so this is a pass.
#'''Crystal Heart:''' [[Awesome |Bearer can cast a second spell in the Hero Phase. If they do they roll a d6, taking d3 Mortal Wounds on a 1.]]
#'''Shade Claw:''' The Medusa's Whisperclaw is now -2 Rend. Helps out your Medusa in melee, so worth considering if you have them on a Bloodwrack Shrine.

===Relics of Khaine===
(Daughters of Khaine Priests only)
#'''Blood Sigil:''' Bearer gains one additional Prayer. More options is never bad.
#'''Iron Circlet:''' Bearer re-rolls 1's when seeing if a prayer is successful. Prayers Manifest on a 3+ and all have very useful buffs so this can be helpful
#'''Rune of Khaine:''' Bearer exploded on death. Roll a dice. One 1 nothing happens. On 2-5 the unit that killed them takes D3 Mortal Wounds. On a 6, the unit takes D6. Works against any attack and doesn't have a ranged restriction so going by RAW, [[Just As Planned| your Hero can explode and do the Mortal Wounds against something across the table.]]. Main problem is that you want your Hag Queens alive as much as possible because Witchbrew is just that good. Witch Elves are your cannon fodder, and should really be dying instead.
#'''Crimson Shard:''' Bearer's Blade of Khaine wounds on a 2+. Pretty solid on a Cauldron as they will be getting stuck into melee anyway.
#'''Khaineite Pendant:''' Bearer can Pray three times in one Hero Phase, but the fiurst time you roll a 1 to manifest a prayer, they take d3 Mortal Wounds instead of 1. Extremely useful as your Prayers are all very useful. Being able to spam them is awesome. Probably your default choice.
#'''Hagbrew:''' Add +1 to Wound Rolls for the Bearer's melee weapons. Nice on a Hag Queen on Cauldron of Blood. [[Rape |Turns thew Slaughter Queen on Cauldron into a death machine.]]

===Lore of Shadows===
The Lore of Shadows we all know and love is back! Note that Doomfire Warlocks are Wizards and can take a spell from here despite not being a Hero unit.
#'''Steed of Shadows:''' Casting Value 5. Caster can Fly and has a 16" Move.
#'''Pit of Shades:''' Casting Value 7. Pick an Enemy Unit within 18" of the caster, within line of sight, and roll 2d6. That unit takes 1 Mortal Wound for each point the 2d6 exceeds their Movement. Awesome against tough, but slow units. That Death player who keeps tarpitting you with blobs of 40 Skeletons? This spell was designed for you, followed up with a Bloodwrack Stare.
#'''Mirror Dance:''' Casting Value 4. Pick two Daughters of Khaine Heroes within 24" of the Caster. As long as they aren't within 6" of any other unit, switch their places on the Battlefield.
#'''The Withering:''' Casting Value 7. Pick an enemy unit within 18" of the caster within Line of Sight. [[Awesome |Until the next Hero Phase add +1 to Wound Rolls for '''all attacks''' that target that unit]]. You should always have this.
#'''Mindrazor:''' Casting Value 7. Pick a friendly Daughters of Khaine unit within 18" of the caster. All of that units weapons gain an additional -1 Rend, and all of their weapons gain 1 extra damage if hitting something with Lower Bravery. It's very easy to pump up the Bravery of your MurderElves anyway. Awesome Synergy with the below...This can double the damage out put of Witchaelves or SoS. Our Most used spell and a must have for the -1 Rend alone
#'''Shroud of Despair:''' Casting Value 4. Pick an enemy unit within 18" and within Line of Sight. They take -1 to Bravery until the next Hero Phase. If the Casting roll was 8+, they take -d3 Bravery Instead.

===Prayers of the Khainite Cult===
#'''Catechism of Murder:''' Pick a Friendly Daughters of Khaine unit within 14". Any 6's to hit explode and deal 2 hits.
#'''Blessing of Khaine:''' Pick a friendly Daughters of Khaine unit within 14". They re-roll failed FNP rolls from Fanatical Faith. With Hagg Nar, bucklers and the Cauldron buff, your units now have a 4+, then rerollable 5+ saves. You can take a charge quite happily, then murder whatever dared getting close in your turn with ease...
#'''Martyr's Sacrifice:''' Pick a friendly Daughters of Khaine unit within 14". Each time a model is killed in the Combat Phase, roll a d6. The dead model deals an extra Mortal Wound on a 5+. Stacks with the Bucklers.
#'''Crimson Rejuvination:''' Pick a friendly Daughters of Khaine unit within 14", except for Morathi in either form. That unit heals 1d3 Wounds.
#'''Covenant of the Iron Heart:''' Pick a friendly Daughters of Khaine unit within 14". That unit does not need to take Battleshock tests.
#'''Sacrament of Blood:''' Pick a friendly Daughters of Khaine unit within 14". That unit counts the current battle round as being 1 higher for determining Blood Rites traits. Stacks with other abilities that give this effect.

===Temples of Blood===
Each has unique special rules for your army, a new artifact and allows you to upgrade one of your Warscroll Battalions
;Hagg Nar : When you get to Zealot's Rage on Blood Rites (turn 3) you get to reroll all hits as opposed to 1s. Your general's command trait MUST be the Hagg Nar one, '''Devoted Disciple:''' Your general, and all units within 7 inches, get a 5+ Fanatical Faith save as opposed to a 6+. Cauldron Guard may take a Cauldron of Blood OR Avatar of Khaine. Hagg Nar allows your key unit to do its fanatical faith on 5+ combined with blessing of khaine and the +1 save from you cauldron your 30 witches will have a 5+ save and a 5++ (Reroll fails) fanatical save making the unit able to survive longer. By turn 3 your army is a killing machine and would be already in combat this is when things swing dramatically for Hagg Nar any unit with just a simple witch brew and being hagg nar will be rerolling their hits and wounds. on a unit of 20 witches that is 80 attacks (reroll hits and wounds) and if you add mind razor into the mix no single opponent can survive that number of paper cuts. The fact that Hagg Nar is the most frequently quoted temple needing a nerfbat to the face suggests that it's pretty good.
;Draichi Ganeth : Add 1 to your hit rolls when you charge and if you have a Slaughter Queen, she must take the relic '''The Darksword''', which gives her Deathsword 4 attacks instead of 3. Slaughter Troupe may take up to two units of Witch Elves. One of the better ones as its restrictions are easily worked around (don't want to have to take the Darksword? Don't take a Slaughter Queen) and a lot of practical applications (hitting on 2s, rerolling 1s on turn 3 will make almost every attack hit). Snake heavy armies take note- combine with Hag buffs for Crystal Vision mortal wounds on 3+, 6's count as two and reroll 1's. That's some scary MW output before the sneks start swinging.
;The Kraith : If you're still within 3 of an enemy after you fight, roll a D6. On a 6, pile in and attack again. In addition, one of your heroes must take the relic '''The Venom of Nagenda:''' Once per battle, you can use it to make one of your melee weapons only do 1 attack, but does D6 Mortal Wounds if it hits. Cauldron Guard may take any number of Hag Queens and Slaughter Queens. When the ability goes off, you'll feel like a god, but it'll only go off if you didn't wipe out the enemy unit AND if you roll a 6 and thus isn't as useful as Hagg Nar or Draichi Ganeth (which help you win the fights you already got into) or Khailebron (which helps you get to the fight in one piece).
;Khailebron : Your enemy gets -1 to hit in the shooting phase against Khailebron units and your General's command must be '''Mistress of Illusion:''' Choose a friendly unit within 7. If they're not in combat, pull them off the battlefield and Deep Strike them anyplace outside of 9 inches of the enemy. Works well on Morathi in caster form. Then you transform her, and her bigger base means she is suddenly only 7” away, ready to charge something, tie it up for a long time, if not outright killing it. The possibility alone will mess with your enemy who has to keep lots of stuff back to protect objectives. Temple Nest may take to two additional units of Blood Sisters or Blood Stalkers (or mix). This plugs one of your army's major weaknesses (getting shot to pieces) and the Command Trait can lead to some fascinating tactics, where your opponent never feels safe.

==Warscrolls==
The common keywords of these warscrolls are: '''ORDER''', '''AELF''' and '''DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE'''.

===Heroes===

;Morathi, High Oracle of Khaine : (480pts) After crawling out of the throat of Slaanesh, Morathi has done not bad for herself, she doesn't have much utility but exists mostly to cause carnage. At her most basic, she's a '''WIZARD''' with the ability to cast three spells per turn and unbind twice, adding +1 to her rolls and doubling the range of her spells. Her unique spell is ''Arnzipals Black Horror'' which basically smacks a unit with a random number mortal wounds. Her command ability allows her to pick two friendly '''DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE''' units within 14" and let them make an immediate shooting attack ''(Wanderers are in envy)'' or if they're within 3" of an enemy it allows them to pile in an make a melee attack. She can't use this command ability on herself though. In close combat, she's a devil, throwing out nine 3+/3+/-1/1 damage or D3 damage attacks between her Heartrender and her Bladed Wings ''(note she cannot fly though)'', all the while imposing a -1 to hit when enemies attempt to swing back at her and she can only take a '''maximum''' of three wounds per turn FULL STOP so that it is impossible to take Morathi out in a single turn of combat, to be sure, she is a handful. There is one ''(rather inconsequential)'' downside; Morathi cannot be healed by any means. Though spells which heal are often quite rare in most armies, so it isn't a huge loss; you want Morathi to lose ''some'' wounds anyway because the best is yet to come.
:*Wounds negated by Fanatical Faith no longer count as allocated.
:*Note that while she can only suffer three wounds per turn, there is a way your opponent can get around this. After being cast, predatory endless spells are moved at the start of each battle round, and this happens <i>between</i> turns, so any damage that happens here won't count towards the three wounds per turn.
:*Morathi LOVES the Khailebron Temple and the Khailebron Temple loves her. The biggest problem with Morathi is her point sink. If you don't transform her at the right time, you risk losing out on her contribution to combat in the late game. Khailebron solves that by teleporting her wherever she needs to be to rip things to shreds, in addition to making her nearly impossible to shoot before that time comes. Let her hang out in the backfield (next to your General, i.e. '''do not''' make her your General!), flexing that 36 inch Sorceress Supreme magical range to snipe enemy heroes or buff your own units, then morph her into Shadow Queen mode and pop her up right behind whatever is left of your enemy's lines.

;Morathi, the Shadow Queen : Morathi's true form, comes in the box along with the High Oracle version, since you aren't actually allowed to set up the Shadow Queen variant on the table at the start of the game. Instead you roll a dice at the start of each hero phase and if the number is equal to or less than the number of wounds Morathi has taken, then replace the High Oracle model entirely with the Shadow Queen. Alternatively, you can choose to transform her willingly. The giant snake monster is a 12 wound beast ''(unfortunately any wounds taken carry over and are '''doubled''')'' that can Fly and has a lot more dangerous melee attacks and comes with a ranged attack, Heartrender alone has the capability to cause 18 points of damage in a single round of combat, but she also has her venomous tail and the serpents in her hair for more damage, all of which still hits and wounds on a 3+ and are subject to Blood Rites making her all the deadlier as the game progresses. Her ranged attack is worth mentioning, simply removing an enemy model '''of your choice''' from an enemy unit if a dice roll beats their wounds characteristic, no ifs or buts... The Shadow Queen is still a spellcaster, albeit diminished by casting/unbinding only one spell per turn and she has lost her ''Sorceress Supreme'' and ''Enchanting Beauty'' rules. Either way, she is still a force to contend with, especially as like her smaller version, she only takes a maximum of THREE wounds per turn (note: turn, not battleground, so you will die in two battle rounds, but you will kill a lot in return in that time as well!), so short of weapons with cause instant death or remove her from play, so depending on the number of wounds she started with it is practically impossible to take her out in anything less than three turns, added to the fact that the High Oracle version also has this rule you can guarantee that no matter what your enemy throws at you, Morathi will still be on the table in one form or another by turn four in EVERY game she is involved in.
:* Nearly broken in the new meeting engagement format as the game ends after 4 rounds. Sure she takes up nearly half your army but there is almost nothing your opponent can do about her without any instant slain mechanism. And since the board is smaller, she will easily land a charge with her mobility. Unless she comes in at the start of Turn 1, you are always better off transforming her immediately.
:* Morathi is a great counter to the Slannesh Greater Daemon that forces you to fight last on a 2+. Whenever possible, transform her and chase it down. Your opponent can only score 3 depravity each turn from Morathi.

;Slaughter Queen : (100pts)The old Death Hag got split in two, the Slaughter Queen has pair of weapons: The "meh" Blade of Khaine which is pretty much a bog-standard weapon, combined with the a stronger but ridiculously named "Deathsword" which has a slightly better profile and does D3 damage; She is your primary priest, always casting on a 3+ but wounding herself on a 1. Unfortunately, her prayers are... weird, she isn't really a fantastic buffer for friendly units. is an incredibly unreliable way of tossing Mortal Wounds at your enemy and the other is a buff. That can only target her. Though to be fair, the buff is pretty good, increasing her meh knife's damage to D3, essentially matching her Deathsword, which will put the lady at 7 damage D3 attacks, enough to kill bigger units all on her own. Her other good prayer is the ability to fight twice in the combat phase, which you should use if she goes up against hordes rather than monsters. She can also have this ability as a command ability, allowing a friendly unit to pile in during the hero phase. The last prayer is an odd one, forcing your opponent to play "[[What|guess which hand]]" or suffer D3 mortal wounds... essentially a bizarre throwback to old legacy rules. In short, altogether she is a 5 wound 5+ save model who will die to angry thoughts if she gets to close to an actual combat. Leave her at home unless she's your general or you're running Shadowhammer compact; IF you take her as general her command ability makes your Witch Aelves kill more than what a Hag Queen would do, making her a better option in this case. *One thing to remember is that priests get an extra prayer from the list of khainite prayers, and therefore can actually pray twice in your hero phase.
:*She can also attempt to unbind one spell in your enemy's hero phase as if she were a wizard, which is nothing to be sniffed at. If you have Bloodwracks as well, you can effectively shut down your opponent's magic every turn.

;Hag Queen : (90pts)The slaughter queen's little sister and amazing supporting choice. She doesn't have the Deathsword, the ''Dance of Doom'' prayer, the ability to unbind spells, or any command ability. Instead she has a chalice of Witchbrew which allows a friendly DoK unit within 3" to re-roll wounds until your next hero phase AND makes your units immune to battle shock. Even at 90pts the Hag Queen is still arguably the best hero in the game. She can turn a unit of 30 Witch Aelves into an unstoppable orgy of slaughter. <s>Until AoS2 comes in, two Hag queens are mandatory in pretty much any DoK list.</s> AoS2 is here and Hag Queens are still excellent, especially since they're harder to shoot (although you still probably want a Cauldron in addition).

;Cauldron of Blood : (300pts, Behemoth)A centerpiece in every sense of the word. It draws the eye and is absolutely essential for turning an assortment of powerful units into a coherent army. Basically a straight upgrade for one of the Queens with an Avatar of Khaine strapped to the same model; needing to be animated with prayers each turn ''(or wait for Blood Rites to kick in by turn 3)'' This also means that there is practically no situation where the Avatar will be without a Priestess to animate him since they are both sharing the same model in this case, making it a safer bet than marching either of them around solo where one or the other can get picked off. It also has extra attacks thanks to the attendant sisters and an added charge bonus which inflicts Mortal Wounds. It also allows DoK units within a diminishing range to add +1 to their save rolls, so this unit is definitely worth having considering how fragile the army is in general, though there really isn't much more to say beyond the standard rules for the Hag/Slaughter Queens. The Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood is almost always going to be the general in any Daughters of Khaine army. It's buffs, bulk, command ability, and output are just too good not to use.
:*If you are still considering which way to go between the Shrine or the Cauldron. You are mostly weighing up whether you want the Aura of Agony for causing mortal wounds in a radius, or the Bloodshield for giving your sisters a +1 to saves. Everything else is pretty much the sum of the model's parts since the actual Shrine/Cauldron itself has mostly the same profile and attacks in either version simply added to whatever hero is mounted on top of it, which you could have deployed separately. However one big factor to remember is that the Cauldron of Blood can still move around the tabletop without having to animate the Avatar, leaving your Priestess to use a different prayer in her hero phase if you want to.
:*If you want a rapetrain, make a Slautgherqueen on this thing your general, then give her Mistress of Poisons, the Crone Blade and Catechism of Murder, wait for Turn 3 then charge something; you'll get +1 to the damage of all your melee hits since Mistress of Poisons works for all of the cauldron's attacks, and with Crone Blade on the Avatar's attack you get more than a chance to cause casualties and recover wounds, since it now does 4 damages per non saved attack, compensating for your fragility ( you still have 13 wounds with a 4+ save but some generals can be tougher); factor in Catechism of Murder ( solid, given this model has 19 attacks) and a self cast Orgy of Slaughter and... well, you won't regret skipping one of the temples for this. IF you don't care about the Crone Blade, take a Hagbrew instead.

;Bloodwrack Medusae : (140pts)Your generic Wizard, capable of tossing off a spell that makes it harder for the enemy to wound you, which is also nice, plus Mindrazor or whatever you like. Also, you know how Wizards tend to be useless in close combat and shooting? Well this is Daughters of Khaine and everyone has to pull their weight. Has an absolutely brutal shooting attack, where you roll a dice for every model in a unit and every 5+ is a Mortal Wound, and has a metric ton of close combat attacks, with a theoretical maximum of 16 wounds (average dice rolls will probably render it closer to 5 or 6, depending on what turn it is). You already want her slinging spells left and right, and she can easily be used to quickly clear out a unit of archers or something while your more important units take out tougher enemies. Definitely needs to be on your list.

;Bloodwrack Shrine : (220pts, Behemoth)While you should probably get a Cauldron of Blood first, if you wanted to keep the Queens and Avatar separate you will be left with a Bloodwrack Shrine, either that or you bought a second model. It's only 80 points more than the Medusa on her own. It costs you 2 inches of movement but it more than doubles your wounds, gives you the Shrinekeepers attacks, the Bladed Impact rule AND gives you the Aura of Agony, which causes D3 mortal wounds ALL ENEMY UNITS within a 7" radius on a diminishing die roll, starting at 2+, which coupled with her Bloodwrack Stare means that the Shrine has the potential to be doling out a lot of mortal wounds in a given turn. They are also Wizards now, being able to cast/unbind a single spell per turn.
:* If you've got an extra Cauldron to assemble as one of these, remember that it's only 80 points more than a normal Bloodwrack Medusa, trading in those 80 points and 2 points of movement for double the wounds, the Shrine Keepers attacks and the Aura of Agony. That's pretty cheap all told, and since it's not a monster, it's still harder to shoot in AoS2, so it's worth considering.
:*Remember that a Bloodwrack Shrine can cast Steed of Shadows on itself to fly 16" and get that Aura of Agony + Bloodwrack Stare where it would hurt the most.

===Troops===
;Witch Aelves : (BATTLELINE, Min:10, Max:30 120/300) The new battletome went and mixed it up a bit, giving Witch Aelves the Bladed Buckler rule which used to be unique to the Sisters of Slaughter. If you take the Buckler then they get a 5+ save with any roll of a six causing an immediate mortal wound on the attacker. This and the ''Fanatical Faith'' allegiance ability has increased the Witch Aelves survivability somewhat. If you'd rather have them be more killy, you can swap the buckler for an extra sacrificial knife which grants them another attack, up to three per model, which makes them rather choppy for a cheap unit, this can be further upgraded thanks to the ''Frenzied Fervour'' rule which grants them another extra attack whenever they are within 8" of DoK Hero in the combat phase, with each potentially throwing out four 3+/4+/-/1 attacks per turn with rerolls depending on what turn it is, which isn't too terrible for a front-line unit. No matter what option you take they are still fragile though. Big units of 30 are currently staples of the tournament scene so make sure you take big unit so they can reach the enemy.
:*It's worth bearing in mind that if you took bucklers you should always take your save even if the enemy has a good rend value and your Witches actually have no hope of surviving. The save inflicts the mortal wound on a six after any rerolls but ''before modifiers'' such as rend or debuffs, thus you might get a free mortal wound or two on your opponent even though your ladies are caught in the headlights and can't do anything about it.
:*If you do the math, bucklers are better: slightly lower damage output ( a difference of decimals even when counting stacks of bonuses to attacks) but they double your odds of surviving a hit, which will leave more witches on the table for more attacks and chances of mortal wounds; consider giving the buckler to all of your witches or at least most of them.

;Sisters of Slaughter : (BATTLELINE, Min:10, Max:30 120/300) The counterpart to the Witch Aelves took a different role with the recent update. They lost their bonus to saves in close combat and are just as fragile as Witch Aelves, who now share the Bladed Buckler rule. They can trade their shield in for the Sacrificial knife, which gives them an additional short ranged attack at the expense of some durability. Their unique special rule is that they can be chosen to pile in and fight up from up to 6" away rather than 3", which means they have a massive threat radius without even charging and can jump on to the enemy during his own Combat Phase. A good use of these ladies might be to hover around your own units and perform a counter-charge whenever one of your weaker units gets threatened, dog-piling on the enemy when he thought he had the advantage. Their long pile in means that they're also one of the only units in the game that can bypass the Idoneth Deepkin's Turn 3 combat priority or the weird Gloomspite Gitz Fanatic "Always Strikes First" ability.

;Blood Sisters : (Optional BATTLELINE: Bloodwrack Medusa General, Min:5, Max:20 120). Your gorgon snake-chicks whose job is to be the army's elite melee anchor unit. Armed with Glaives and their Crystal Touch attacks, they can throw out a reliable amount of damage every turn. Glaives have three 3+/3+/-1/1 attacks at 2" range which would be decent before you consider rerolls from Blood Rites or further buffs from prayers. The Crystal Touch is a kicker though, causing an instant mortal wound on every hit. Making Blood Sisters the ones you want to throw at the enemy elite to get maximum advantage of the Crystal Touch (wasting it on cannon fodder units is just a gross waste of mortal wounds in most circumstances). The main problem is that they cost quite a lot for only a few models, yes they have two-wounds each but they are still fragile with a 5+ save(unless you bring a cauldron, which you should) and even with Fanatical Faith they really don't have a ton of staying power (for example despite being an elite unit they are less durable than a Liberator or Chaos Warrior) so you will be feeling the loss of each one heavily. Keep them protected with the massive number of buffs you can pile onto them. Large units are also a must simply because of the MASSIVE discount they get in groups of 20.
:*This is where all your buffs go. Even 5 snake ladies are a strong close combat unit but their damage output can be increased to ridicules levels. 10 snakes with catechism of murder, mindrazor and witch brew in a Hagg-Nar list will have 30 -2 rend 2 Damage attacks, 10 crystal touch attacks, all with re-rolls to-hit and to-wound plus exploding sixes. Sure, lots of eggs in one basket. But if you manage to get this off at the right moment the game will be over as they will have killed everything they can get their scaly hands on. *Don't forget the defensive buffs, with a Cauldron, Haggnarr, and the reroll prayer you can make a big unit of the snake ladies 4+(3+ if you can find a nice big terrain piece) 5++,5+++ which makes them actually ridiculously tough.
:*Consider Draichi Ganeth’s charge bonus for mortal wounds on 3+ rather than 4+.

;Blood Stalkers : (Min:5, Max:20 120) The ranged snake ladies. Yes you also have Khinerai Heartrenders now, but the Stalkers have the longer range and fewer rules for moving about, making them your primary fire support unit rather than the mobile harassing unit of harpies. Rolling 6+ to hit makes the bow do a mortal wound instead of the normal damage, which is nice to have but shouldn't be relied upon since you can't do massed ranged firepower like some other armies can. The squad leader also gets a Bloodwyrm, which is a little dragon-pet that adds a single reliable close combat attack to her profile, but little else, kind of at odds with the unit's purpose as they are only average melee combatants. They do have a reasonable movement, allowing them to get into desirable firing positions easier and with a high bravery they can good backfield objective holders while delivering ranged support to the front. And while not amazing given their small unit sizes they have reasonable combat abilities for a ranged unit, so there is some consolation in that. Overall don't expect a whole lot of mileage thanks to a combination of small squad sizes, relatively few attacks and the fact they can't be Battleline units, but given they this army isn't heavy on long range shooting just accept them for what they are and just don't go expecting miracles.
:*As ranged units, they are probably best compared to Stormcast Judicators with Skybolt Bows, rather than the mass ranged units found in Free Peoples or Wanderers - they are 2-wound models with decent single-fire range attacks. Stalkers are quicker ''(8" move)'' and balsier ''(8 bravery vs 6 bravery)'' and better in close combat. However they lack the Judicators overall shooting versatility and damage output (they have no alternate ranged weapons or powerfull special weapons). With Fanatical Faith they are probably just as resilient, though that really depends on the Rend value of the weapon attacking them. Anything with even a rend of 1 will pretty much negate the bonus of Fanatical Faith to virtually nothing and these guys aren't really cheap enough to just throw away without thought. And as always Stalkers aren't battleline like Judicators, which is a shame really.
:*With the recent points adjustment to match Blood Sisters, they are now viable in Meeting Engagement. They have an effective range of 32 which allows you to easily land shots on almost anything on the smaller board. Just kill of at least one model and not die from return fire, you will win the Victory Points for having slain models with higher wound count.
:*Take note the Krone has a +1 to hit. This means she hits on a 2+ and score a mortal wound on a 5+ making it possible to land mortal wound on enemy hero who has a Look Out Sir -1 modifier against shooting.

;Khinerai Lifetakers : (Min:5, Max:20 80/280pts) One of the new Khinerai Harpy units. Lifetakers behave pretty much like flying Witch Aelves. With a pair of average attacks and a version of the Bladed Buckler called the Heartpiercer Shield, which is essentially the same thing; granting them a 5+ save that causes mortal wounds to attackers on six. Strictly speaking they are worse in close combat than Witch Aelves, but they can FLY for one, as well as bein able to Deep Strike onto the battlefield anywhere more than 9" from the enemy. The real draw with Lifetakers over other similar units is that they gain +1 damage whenever they charge into combat and can also fall back from combat '''after''' they have completed all of their attacks on a die roll of 4+, so you can escape during an enemy turn and just charge them again on your own. Get enough of these together and they'll be taking anything down.
:* In the new meeting engagement format, these ladies are golden. At 14" movement and a smaller board size in meeting engagement, you are better off deploying them at the edge of the board with a Hag queen. Buffed with Witch Brew and Catechism of Murder, a small unit of 5 will rip any light unit of 10 to shreds. Battleshock will finish the job and you even have a 50/50 chance of backing off to capture the nearby objective. Since they are just 1 wound per model, it works to your advantage when counting wounds to compete for victory points in meeting engagement.

;Khinerai Heartrenders : (Min:5, Max:20 90pts) The other of your two new Khinerai Harpy units. The Heartrender variant are your ranged specialists who can fling their barbed javelins up to 12" doing decent 3+/3+/-1/1 damage; although that's only one attack each. While this is actually pretty decent when you compare them to a similar unit like Prosecutors with Stormcall Javelins, Lifetakers come with even more special rules that make them useful. Firstly, they can Deep Strike, arriving anywhere on the table more than 9" from the enemy when you feel like, which is still happily within their shooting range, which also has their Rend characteristic boosed to -2 for that alpha strike attack. Allowing you to genuinely strategise with where to put them and what they can hurt. They can also shoot after running and fall back after shooting on a die roll of 4+, meaning that although 12" is quite a short range for a ranged weapon you have a chance of darting in and out an inevitable counter-charge when the enemy gets annoyed with you. They also have the Heartpiercer Shield which makes them more resilient though admittedly you don't want this unit in melee because they do so much better as a harassing unit.
:* At 90 points, it's not hard to get your points back for this unit in ways other than simply killing something outright. Drop two Draichi Ganeth Slaughter Troupe 5-Harpy (each with an Allied Assassin) units in your opponents back field and pepper a hiding hero with your Javelins until you can aggro one of his units to come take care of you. Note: Be mindful of your surroundings and don't drop into a bunch of gun lines... but if you do, they'll spend a turn shooting two 80 point units rather than your 300 point blobs of Witch's and Sister's. Anyways, if you get something to bite, let them charge you, then fly/run/retreat out of there ''towards'' your opponents now-isolated Hero, drop your Allied Assassin's on him/her and decide where to go from there.
:* Heartrenders can also serve as line backers, able to move and support your units where needed. Use this when faced against armies that put out more damage than they can handle, sitting them behind your hordes of Witches/Sisters to take the brunt of your opponents abuse and chucking Javelins at them then moving into combat to mop up whatever is left.

;Doomfire Warlocks : (Min:5, Max:20 160pts) The only males in the faction. These guys are actually incredible. They are excessively fast at 14" and they now come with two-shot crossbows they are still great, as they're pretty tough and units of them are collectively Wizards. This makes them incredibly versatile already, letting you play small units to either shoot Mortal Wounds or buff your squishy ladies, but the really great part is their unique spell. First, it's casting value 5, so very easy to get off, then you get +1 to cast if the unit has 10+ models and then its a damage spell that scales to your unit size, topping at a flat 6 Mortal Wounds at 10+ models. Six. Mortal. Wounds. If your opponent sees that even once, he will focus your Warlocks down, but that's alright, since it means ignoring your Sisters of Slaughter and as soon as those ladies are in melee, your Warlocks are safe again.
:*Another way to use them is to ignore their trademark spell and see them as a mobile buff support unit. Most time than not DOK tends to be a single directed steam roller which not many units to sit back and cap objectives. This is where The warlocks comes in, they are fast enough to cap and tough enough to stick a little longer vs smaller opposing units compared to using harpies for the similar role esp if they are within range to the blood shield! To top it off their insane 14" movement allows you to position your warlocks in such a way what they can be outside the 30" dispel radius from your opponent and still in range to buff your own units - So use them like the fluff - males whom are only useful as support units to empower our witches and cap objectives so the killing can be done by the girls of khaine.. I mean morathi...
:*[[Eldar |Even though they are Cavalry, there are multiple ways of being able to Teleport them into the face of your opponent on Turn 1]]. Taking a Shadow Patrol with two units of 10 Warlocks and a General with the Khailebron Command Trait can do just this. [[Rape |That is 6 Mortal Wounds plus 40 4+/4+/-/1 Crossbow shots, and whatever spells you loaded onto the second unit hitting your opponent at once]].*

===Behemoth===
;Avatar of Khaine : (Behemoth 140pts) So you built a Bloodwrack Shrine and had the statue of Khaine left over? Well GW have fixed that for you. Like 40k Eldar players you can bring your very own incarnation of war and murder to the tabletop. Except this one is an spiky iron golem animated by the prayers of the nearest Death Hag rather than a [[Grimdark|burning daemon animated by the soul of a dead warrior]]. This means that the Avatar '''<u>NEEDS</u>''' to be accompanied by a Priestess and keep her protected, otherwise it stands on the battlefield doing nothing each turn and you'll have wasted your points. This becomes less of an issue if you have the ''Blood Rites'' allegiance ability, which automatically animates your statue from turn three onwards, but seriously, you want this thing moving before then because it's a heavy hitter. In close combat it throws out four attacks at -2 rend and 3 damage, making it your primary character slayer. It also has a ranged attack that spews blood all over the enemy, with six shots at 3+/3+/-1/1 it is nothing to scoff at, making it the near equivalent of whole ranged units in other armies ''(for example: it causes more wounds than a 10 man squad of Glade Guard)''.
:*One problem? The Avatar does very little other than be a simple beaststick, it does provide Daughter of Khaine a +1 bravery bonus within 7" although bravery is not one of the major problems the Daughters have to face ''(poor saves come higher on the list)'' though thankfully the bravery bonus applies whether the Avatar is animated or not, because it's still a giant religious icon of their war god.
:*Buff your Avatar with Mindrazor and watch him wreck everything in range. Thanks to his high bravery, his attacks will nearly always be four attacks with -3 rend and 4(!) damage each. <s>Unless you're up against undead. Or daemons. Or Seraphon.</s> Bravery 11 (10 + 1 thanks to "Idol of Worship") will beat the bravery 10 of any of these units (when not affected by debuffs).

==Battalions==
===From Start Collecting===
; Blood Coven (not legal in pitched battles) : ''A Hag Queen, one unit of Witch Elves and a Bloodwrack Shrine.''

===From Battletome Daughters of Khaine===
;Cauldron Guard (540pt. min.) : ''A Hag Queen, two units of Witch Elves and two units of Khinerai Lifetakers.''

Adds 1 to the units in the Cauldron Guards run and charge rolls. Anything that lets you move into combat faster is good. The Witch Aelves can charge after running, making them ridiculously fast (especially with rerolls of 1s) and now your Lifetakers make their charge on an 8 rather than a 9 after landing, letting them more consistently get the charge and their charging bonuses.

;Slaughter Troupe (630pt. min.) : ''A Slaughter Queen, two units of Sisters of Slaughter and two units of Khinerai Heartrenders.''

Lets all the units in the Battalion fall back and still shoot/charge. Given that in 2nd Edition of Age of Sigmar, you can only shoot at units you're in combat with, this lends the Heartrenders a lot of versatility, but the real kicker is in a Draichi Ganeth army (which can also add up to 2 units of Witch Aelves to this Battalion). They get +1 to hit on the charge, allowing you to yo-yo units in and out of combat to keep getting the bonus.

;Temple Nest (870pt. min.) : ''A Medusa, two units of Blood Sisters and two units of Blood Stalkers.''
: Every to-hit roll of 1s made by a enemy unit in close combat (after re-rolls before modifiers) causes a mortal wound. Basically Bladed Bucklers/Heartpiercer Shields for your snake ladies. Useful to make your opponent nervous about directing a lot of attacks at these units. With the new generic Command Ability All-Out Attack that allows enemy to re-roll hit rolls of 1s, this may work towards or against you. If your opponents are starved for CP, you can bait them into using CP to avoid Mortal Wounds, denying them the opportunity to use CP for other purposes.

;Shadow Patrol (770pt. min.) : ''Two units of Doomfire Warlocks and a total four units of Khinerai Heartrenders or Lifetakers.''

One per battle round, you can pull one of these units that's more than 3 inches away from the enemy and set them up anywhere outside of 9 inches of the enemy. Good for making your enemy never feel safe since your units can surround them easily and worth remembering that the wording on both this battalion and the Heartrender's Death From Above rule means they interact: Dropping a unit of Heartrenders with this Batallions means they get -2 rend on their Javelins.

;Shadowhammer Compact (1080pt. min.) : ''Two units of Witch Elves, one unit of Blood Stalkers, one unit of Khinerai Heartrenders, two units of Liberators, one unit of Judicators and one unit of Prosecutors.''
: In each Hero Phase you select one Daughters of Khaine unit and one Stormcast Eternals unit - both units do one of the the following, it must be the same: Move, Shoot, or Charge/Pile in.

===From Grand Alliance Order===
;Bloodwrack Sisterhood (940 pt. min.) : ''A Cauldron of Blood, a unit of Bloodwrack Medusae, a Death Hag, and 3-6 units choose between the following: Witch Aelves Doomfire Warlocks or Sisters of Slaughter.''
: During your hero phase roll a D6 for each battalion unit within 3" of an enemy unit and within 9" of the Cauldron of Blood. On a 6 that unit can immediately pile in and attack as if it were the combat phase. This does not stop them from piling in and attacking again later that turn.

==Super-Battalions==
===From Battletome Daughters of Khaine===

;War Coven of Morathi (3160pt. min.) : ''Morathi, one Cauldron Guard, one Temple Nest, one Slaughter Troupe and one Shadow Patrol.''
ABILITIES
Blood Rituals: If your army has the DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE allegiance, units in this battalion count the current battle round number as being 1 higher than it actually is when determining what abilities they receive from the Blood Rites battle trait (pg 50). This is cumulative with other, similar abilities (e.g. the True Believer Command Trait or the Sacrament of Blood prayer).
Devout Followers: Do not take a battleshock test for War Coven of Morathi units that are within 18" of Morathi (in either of her forms) when the test is taken.

==Army Building==
If it ever come back in stock, begin with the Daughters of Khaine Blood Coven box, and magnetize the Cauldron/Shrine so you can reconfigure it as needed.

Start out with ten Sisters of Slaughter and two boxes Doomfire Warlocks. If you happen to have the Mistweaver Saih from Silver Tower, add her.

Then, add a second box Sisters of Slaughter and a third box Doomfire Warlocks. You now have twenty crazy murder ladies and fifteen crazy mounted murder mages and possibly a Wizard to keep them company.

If you desperately want Witch Aelves, get thirty of them at once. That MIGHT be enough to get them into combat. ''With Khailebron, you are not so vulnerable to enemy shooting = more surviving Witch Aelves, and you can buff them and then teleport them to take out any key units the enemy has (preferably on turn 2+ for that secure charge). Peachy says that he has seen a full unit of buffed Witch Aelves go through a Great Unclean One in a turn, so Witch Aelves are definitely not "bad" as an unit choice. But still take them in groups of 30.''
Witch Aelves are expen$ive as fuck, though, so look for bargains or used models if you want several boxes worth of them.

Two boxes Khinerai Heartrenders add even more ranged damage and allow you play a Slaughter Troupe.

==Allied Armies==

*'''Cities of Sigmar:''' Darkshards and Sorceresses give you good ranged support, but their melee infantry moves too slowly to work well with yours. Sorceress on Black Dragon can be fun if you have the points to spare, but anything she can do Morathi does better, her only advantage is being cheaper. Scourgerunner Chariots throw out some good ranged support and 3 of them can take up a lot of room. Shadow warriors can be a alternative to Khinari due to their infiltration rules and shadow ability.

*'''Idoneth Deepkin:''' Ideally you want to grab some Ishlaenn Guard, as those guys will soak up obscene amounts of damage for you. Nothing else is really worth considering.

*'''Stormcast Eternals:'''There are two things Stormcast Eternals can do for you: Tough units to weather attacks for you and ranged support via the crossbows.Vanguard raptors can add high volume of shots or character sniping. Knight-Incantors can add some magic options (like Everblaze comet) and the auto dispel. Same price as a Medusa.

*'''Gotrek:''' Big Daddy Gotrek is back, and is one of the best killers in the game. Takes up half the average army if teamed up with Morathi and makes an awesome hammer and anvil combo. Hes slow through, so build around that.

===Mercenary Companies===
*'''Blacksmoke Battery:'''
*'''Greyfyrd:'''
*'''Grugg Brothers:'''
*'''Gutstuffers:'''
*'''Nimyard’s Rough-Riders:'''
*'''Order of the Blood-Drenched Rose:'''
*'''Rampagers:'''
*'''Skroug’s Menagerie:'''
*'''Sons of the Lichemaster:'''
*'''Tenebrous Court:'''

==External links==
Rules are here

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-caludron-blood-en.pdf

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-witch-aelves-en.pdf

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-sisters-slaughter-en.pdf

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-bloodwrack-shrine-en.pdf

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-doomfire-warlocks-en.pdf

{{Age_of_Sigmar_Tactics}}

Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Order/Idoneth Deepkin

2020-03-14T14:21:30Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* Why play Idoneth Deepkin? */

{{Age of Sigmar Faction|Faction=Idoneth Deepkin|Logo=Fucking_Idoneth.jpeg|Alliance=Order|Motto=Soul-Hunting Pirates riding Sea Monsters.}}

The new boys on the block! The [[Idoneth Deepkin]] are a new faction which sees [[GW]] re-envision elves to fit in the [[Age of Sigmar]] setting. Tragically lacking souls (so they've come to steal yours), the Idoneth are an army that rewards careful placement of models, a variety of units that provide rapid mobility and negative modifier shenanigans and some of the best allegiance abilities in the game.

==Why play Idoneth Deepkin?==

They are elves unique to AoS, and a rare example of sea elves with fleshed out lore and playstyle.

For more points:

'''Pros'''
* They are [[Awesome|Soul-Hunting Pirates riding Sea Monsters]].
* Because you want to play with [[Dark Eldar]] in a fantasy setting. Or you like the [[Dark Eldar]] playstyle but want a group that aren't [[Asdrubael Vect|huge]] [[Haemonculi|assholes]].
* They are [[Awesome|Soul-Hunting Pirates riding Sea Monsters]].
* Because you want to copy 40K's system of character protection (one of which is the, here ironically named, [[Fish of Fury]]).
* They are [[Awesome|Soul-Hunting Pirates riding Sea Monsters]].
* Because you love sea life!
* They are [[Awesome|Soul-Hunting Pirates riding Sea Monsters]].
* Because you love an army built around speed, speed and '''MOAR SPEED'''! An all-cavalry army not only benefits those who like all-cavalry armies, but every unit has the fly special rule. Combine this with the right Enclave and you'll outrun everybody but Nighthaunt.
* They are [[Awesome|Soul-Hunting Pirates riding Sea Monsters]].
* Because you wanted more Dark Souls in your Age of Sigmar.
* They are [[Awesome|Soul-Hunting Pirates riding Sea Monsters]].
* Because [[Teclis]] wasn't a big enough [[Eldrad| dick]] already.
* Did I mention they are [[Awesome|Soul-Hunting Pirates riding Sea Monsters?]]
* You saw the 2018 Aquaman movie and thought the Atlanteans' armies look awesome in battle.
* Uh, [[Awesome|Soul-Hunting Pirates riding Sea Monsters!]]

'''Cons'''
* Their battleline are quite fragile.
* Their bravery is mediocre, and they mostly lack the high wounds count or saves to take the lumps and keep going unlike their equivalents in other armies.
* Mediocre spellcasting unless you shell out the points (and money) for an expensive Eidolon of the Sea.

==Rulebooks==
{{AOSRulebooks|tome=Idoneth Deepkin|points=[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/c6829966.pdf Idoneth Deepkin Errata]}}

==Allegiance Abilities==

===Battle Traits===

*'''Forgotten Nightmares:''' Your '''Idoneth Deepkin''' units can only be targeted with Missile Weapons if they are the closest visible target. Keeps your Heroes safe from shooting, though not from magic. Also note that you can use allies to shield your Deepkin with this as the rule stated that the Deepkin unit must be the closest unit. If there are no Deepkin units in range, then the attack must hit the non-Deepkin unit.
*'''Tides of Death:''' Each round, you get a different ability. After the fourth, it cycles back to 1.
*#'''Low Tide:''' Your units count as being in cover. Helps you advance without making you scramble to terrain.
*#'''Flood Tide:''' After running, your units can either shoot or charge (but not both).
*#'''High Tide:''' Units with this trait fight <s>before everyone else in melee</s> At the start of the combat phase now. Get Shipwrecked, Gristlegore. Also, there's a bunch of abilities that activate during this turn.
*#'''Ebb Tide:''' After falling back, your units can either shoot or charge (but not both).

*'''The Ethersea:''' You get to place up to two Etheric Vortex terrain pieces. Currently, the only existing Etheric Vortex terrain piece is the Gloomtide Shipwreck, which you can either split into two or buy and place two full ships of. The shipwrecks give your units a 6+ Save-after-the-save and have a chance to deal damage to enemies, so they are fairly useful, though less so in a pure Akhelian army. Errata'd so that the shipwreck must be placed more than 6" away from objectives or any other shipwreck.

===Command Traits===
#'''Merciless Raider:''' Can reroll run and charge rolls. Interesting for Steed of Tides shenanigans.
#'''Hunter of Souls:''' Reroll 1s To Wound. Shame this doesn't work on a mount's attacks, but still nice.
#'''Unstoppable Fury:''' During High Tide, your General adds +2 to his attacks. Again, shame this doesn't work on mounts, but it still makes an Akhelian King terrifying.
#'''Born From Agony:''' Your general has 2 more Wounds. Always nice to shrug off an additional Arcane Bolt.
#'''Nightmare Legacy:''' Enemy units within 12" take -1 Bravery. Not a strong effect, but in a fairly large bubble, so it evens out.
#'''Lord of Storm and Sea:''' +2 Bravery for Idoneth Deep in units wholly within 12". Since your units aren't exactly blessed with great Bravery, this is pretty nice.

===Artefacts===
'''Akhelian Artefacts'''<br>
Can be given to an Akhelian Hero (so only the Akhelian King, because Volturnos can't get one):
#'''Sanguine Pearl:''' Gives a 5+ save after the save in melee
#'''Potion of Hateful Frenzy:''' Once per game active in the hero phase to get + 1 to hit and +1 to wound for a round. Then they take 1 mortal wound in the following hero phase. Your personal super sayajin mode. Combine with ''Unstoppable Fury'' to make your King utterly terrifying for one turn. And don't forget to draw your Falchion to make the most out of it.
#'''Ankusha Spur:''' +3" to movement and the mount rerolls 1s <s>to hit</s> To Wound after the Errata because someone realized that the King's aura already gives him the 1s To Hit thing regardless
#'''Armour of the Cythai:''' Enemy gets -1 to hit if they target the bearer in melee. You're probably better off with the pearl.
#'''Bioshock Shell:''' Once per battle at the start of the combat phase you can inflict D3 mortal wounds on each enemy unit within 3". You have so few ways of dealing Mortal Wounds that this is interesting. That said, is it really worth running this on a 240 point King?
#'''Abyssal Blade:''' You can improve the rend characteristic of 1 weapon carried by the bearer. Also increase the damage of that weapon by 1 if targetting SLAANESH. Too situational, but interesting.

'''Idoneth Artefacts'''<br>
Can be given to any Idoneth Deepkin Hero:
#'''Rune of the Surging Tide:''' Use at the start of hero phase once per battle. It has 2 modes: adds 1" movement to all friendly deepkin or takes 1" from all enemies until your next hero phase. Neither a big buff nor a big debuff.
#'''Black Pearl:''' It is the fastest ship with Johnny Depp usually as the captain. Oops, wrong universe. I mean it gives a 6+ save after the save.
#'''Lliandra's Last Lament:''' Once per battle you can have all friendly deepkin completely within 18" skip their battleshock test. Very interesting, especially when running a big unit of Allopexes.
#'''Terrornight Venom:''' Pick a weapon. You can reroll wound rolls of 1 for that weapon. Also gives a permanent -1 to bravery to things wounded by that weapon. Not many weapons worth using it on.
#'''Cloud of Midnight:''' Once per battle at the start of any phase the bearer cannot be targetted for attacks, spells or abilities for that phase. They also cannot use attacks, spells or abilities that phase either. It could pair great with ''Forgotten Nightmares'' against a shooty heavy army - put the bearer at the front of your army and activate this in your opponent's shooting phase. The bearer can't be targeted because of the Cloud, and the rest of your Deepkin can't be targeted because they're not the closest unit.
#'''Whorlshell:''' Once per battle at the start of your hero phase you can pick an enemy HERO within 9" and roll 2d6. If you beat their bravery they get -1 to all hit rolls for the rest of the game. Since most Heroes you'd want to do that to have high Bravery... just take Brain Barnacles instead.

'''Isharann Artefacts''' <br>
Can be given to any Isharann Hero:
#'''Steelshell Pearl:''' Gives a 5+ save after the save against missile weapons. Interesting if you want a cheap sacrifice to soak up fire thanks to ''Forgotten Nightmares'', but other than that, it's useless precisely because of ''Forgotten Nightmares''.
#'''Mind Flare:''' Once per battle at the start of combat pick an enemy unit within 3". They get -1 to hit for that phase. Meh.
#'''Dritchleech:''' All Wizards except Idoneth Deepkin get -1 to casts while within 18". Interesting, but remember that this will affect allied Wizards as well.
#'''Auric Lantern:''' At the start of your shooting phase pick an enemy within 18" in cover. They dont get cover until your next shooting phase. Not too great, since your shooting isn't exactly stellar. Except the debuff is not limited to ranged attacks; it is just applied in the shooting phase!
#'''Disharmony Stones:''' Once per battle at the start of your hero phase you pick up to 2 enemy heroes within 12" and then the opposing player must make a choice. 1) they roll a dice for each hero picked on a 3+ they take a mortal wound. 2) They roll a dice for each hero picked and on a 5+ they take d3 mortal wounds. 3) Each hero picked takes d3 mortal wounds. Then roll a dice, on a 4+ the bearer of this artifact takes d3. Be very careful with these, as they might end up doing nothing or doing something and hurting you as well. Also worthless against armies without many Heroes.
#'''Brain Barnacles:''' Once per battle at the start of your hero phase pick an enemy hero within 12" and roll 2d6. [[Awesome|If the roll is equal or greater than the distance between them then that Hero gets -1 to hit and spell cast for the rest of the game]].

'''Arcane Artefacts'''<br>
Can be given to any Idoneth Deepkin Hero who's also a Wizard, so Tidecaster and Aspect of the Sea only:
#'''Arcane Pearl:''' Gives a 5+ save after the save against mortal wounds. Combines nicely with both the Aspect of the Sea's inherent toughness and the Tidecaster's Spirit Guardians. If you dont need another realm, pick Aqshy and get the 4+ mortal wound save item from there.
#'''Sands of Infinity:''' Once per battle you can make a spell last for 2 rounds instead of one. You must use this before the cast and unbind roll. Very nice.
#'''Coral Ring:''' Gives 1 reroll for casting and 1 reroll for unbinding for the game. More reliability is never a bad thing.
#'''Bauble of Buoyancy:''' Gives fly and doubles their run roll. Just in case you want a Tidecaster to keep up with an Akhelian army. Consider picking up the Thermalrider Cloak from Aqshy instead.
#'''Kraken Tooth:''' Once per battle in your shooting phase pick an enemy unit within 12" and visible. Roll a dice and: 1: bearer suffers d3 mortal wounds, 2-5: enemy suffers D3 mortal wounds, 6: Pick 1 enemy model in the unit. If the wound characteristic is less than 10 they are slain. If it is 10+ they take 2d6 mortal wounds. The kraken does not mess around.
#'''Augury Shells:''' Once per battle at the start of the hero phase you can roll 2d6. You can choose to use that result for your casting roll or your enemies unbinding roll on spells cast by the bearer during that phase. You must choose to substitute the roll before rolling for the spell/unbind. Very nice. A terrible roll you can give to the opponent and a good one you keep to yourself. Again, more reliability.

===Lore of the Deep===

#'''Steed of Tides:''' Casting Value 5. Pick a friendly hero that is not a monster within 6". Remove them from the table and set them up within 24" of their original spot and outside of 9" of enemies. This counts as their movement in the movement phase. The Hero does not need to be an Idoneth Deepkin.
#'''Abyssal Darkness:''' Casting Value 5. Friendly deepkin are treated as being within cover while wholly within 9" of the caster until your next hero phase. Entirely worthless on your first turn and worthless on any other turn if you have a Leviadon. That said, if you go heavy on Namarti and don't use a Leviadon, fairly good.
#'''Vorpal Maelstrom:''' Casting Value 6. Pick a spot within 18" of the caster that they can see. Roll for each enemy unit within 3" of that spot, if the dice is less than or equal to the number of models in that unit they take d3 mortal wounds.
#'''Pressure of the Deeps:''' Casting Value 7. Pick an enemy they can see within 12" and roll a dice. If you beat their wound stat they are slain. Interestingly you pick a ''model'' with this, not a unit. So just point at that icon bearer in the Pink Horror unit to seriously piss your opponent off.
#'''Tide of Fear:''' Casting Value 6. Pick an enemy the caster can see within 12". Until your next hero phase that unit gets -1 to hit and to bravery. Nice, but remember that your Aspect of the Sea can do that to D6 units. Better yet, combine the two to make sure one enemy unit in particular is utterly screwed.
#'''Arcane Corrasion:''' Casting Value 6. This auto targets the closest enemy. Measure the distance between the caster and that unit. If the distance is: 12" or less: 1 mortal wound. 13-24": 2 mortal wounds. 25-36": 3 mortal wounds. 37-48" 4 mortal wounds. Such a weird spell. Interesting in that it is a damage spell that can be used turn 1, as most damage spells have too short a range for that to work, but ''Arcane Corrasion'' can't just be used turn 1, it's practically guaranteed to do quite a bit of damage then.

===Isharann Rituals===
Deepkin can cast 1 ritual a turn. At the start of your hero phase you declare which ritual you wish to cast, pick an ISHARANN HERO that is more than 9" away from an enemy and roll 2d6. On a 10+ the ritual succeeds and if not then nothing happens. You get +1 if the caster is within 1" of a Gloomtide Shipwreck, +1 if the caster is a PRIEST (i.e. a Soulscryer), +1 for each non priest Isharann heroes within 3", and +2 for each priest Ishaaran hero within 3". This is not a spell and cannot be unbound. They have no range, they simply affect the game

The 3 Rituals are:

#'''Ritual of Erosion:''' Until your next hero phase your enemy does not get a cover bonus. Your go-to if you don't have an Eidolon around. No cover does horrible things to bulwark armies like Eternal Guard-Wanderers and Freeguild.
#'''Ritual of Rousing:''' Heal 1 Wound on each EIDOLON and they can reroll all failed hit and casting rolls until your next hero phase. In case you didn't realize, this is horrifying on an Aspect of the Sea with his two spells per turn.
#'''Ritual of Tempest:''' Until your next hero phase enemy models cannot fly. Unless the table is littered with terrain, this really only helps against Kharadron,gloomspite (squigs) and Nighthaunts. Although, shutting down your opponents ability to fly over your units means that they are going to have to fight through the rest of your army.

==Warscrolls==
===Named Characters===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Volturnos.pdf Volturnos, High King of the Deep]:''' An Akhelian King +1. For a measly 40 points more, Volturnos gets another swing with his weapons and far better buffs, such as the reroll-aura being extended to 18" and all Deepkin within that bubble also getting +1 to Bravery. But the real kicker is his shield: Whenever he's affected by any spell, you can choose to roll a D6 and on a 3+ that spell doesn't affect him (but works normally on everything else). Not only does that keep him relatively safe from enemy debuffs and damage spells, it also means you can drop ''Vorpal Maelstrom'' on top of him when he's surrounded by enemies.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Lotann.pdf Lotann, Warden of the Soulledgers]:''' Aka Octobro. With a fairly standard Hero statline but slightly above-average damage output thanks to the Ochtar, he's not too shabby on his own. Especially his 5+ Save-after-the-save is appreciated since he can't take Artefacts. But what you really take him for is his buff, giving Deepkin in general +1 Bravery and Namarti in particular the ability to reroll 1s To Hit in a <del>massive</del> completely within 12" bubble. Note that his bubble doesn't specify melee, so feel free to use it to boost those Reavers' shots. That said, if you play mostly Akhelians, then the Akhelian King does the buffing better.

===Heroes===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Akhelian_King.pdf Akhelian King]:''' As mentioned above, the generic Akhelian King pales in comparison to Volturnos, but that doesn't mean he's bad. He's worse at everything, but can take Traits and Artefacts, which can combine to make him either tougher or killier or supportier than Volturnos, though never all three (there is also nothing stopping you from taking one alongside Volturnos if you really want to). Whatever you pick, the Akhelian King is always a fast, reasonably tough and extremely killy Hero who provides good support to your Akhelians. His main weapon is either a Greatsword or a Bladed Polearm; the later is better provided you can keep charging: 2", -2 Rend, and trades one attack for dishing out 3 damage instead D3 when he charges. If you can't reliably charge each time, the Sword and Spear actually mathhammer out to very similar damage (we are talking fractions here). One other thing he has over Volty is that you can stow the Shield and Draw the Falchion. This lowers his Save to a 4+, but gives you 3, 3+/4+/-/1 Attacks when when you really want to make sure something is dead.
**Make Volturnos jealous of your prowess by giving your Akhelian King the Ethereal Amulet. Worried about using your Falchion in combat because putting away your shield gives you a -1 to save modifier? WORRY NO MORE, GENTLE SEA ELF. Having a 3+ unrendable save PLUS an extra attack profile that can be buffed by either the King's own Command Ability or the Unstoppable Fury command trait (in High Tide only) will please you.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Isharann_Tidecaster.pdf Isharann Tidecaster]:''' A fairly survivable support caster with access to a number of very interesting spells. All in all, you only pick the lass for two reasons: One, you want a Wizard but don't have enough points for an Aspect of the Sea. Two, you take her as your general, because she can reverse Tides of Death. Combined with the Fuethán turning ''Ebb Tide'' into ''Flow Tide'', this will give you a very fast, very aggressive army.
**Another use, that pairs well if your going to have her sit out of combat and only included because of her ability to flip the tide, is to give the Arcane Corrosion spell, and use her as a little impromptu artillery piece. Putting her in the back corner and spamming the spell makes her an effective choice for throwing some MW downrange.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Isharann_Soulscryer.pdf Isharann Soulscryer]:''' Count von Count here is a support character through and through. Fragile, with only milquetoast attacks, but blessed with a combo of bonus effects in that he can outflank along with 2 other Deepkin units and on top of that the ability to add 3 to Deepkin charge rolls so long as they charge the one unit he points at. Also allows for some targetting shenanigans with ''Forgotten Nightmares'', as you can force your opponent's backfield fire support to shoot your nigh-invulnerable Ishlaen Guard. Be aware that his special rule, seeker of souls, makes it so that Idoneth units within 12” have to charge the unit marked with this ability if they are going to charge anything this turn. You cannot opt out of this bonus, as every unit within 12 of the target must add 3 inches to their charge.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Isharann_Soulrender.pdf Isharann Soulrender]:''' The Soulrender wants to be a hybrid Hero killer/buffer. The latter role he pulls off remarkably well, reviving D3 plus however many models his Hook killed that turn Namarti models at the end of your battleshock phase. The former role... eh. His two hook attacks are fairly decent, with a rule that makes it better against Heroes, but it will take some prior damage for him to take down any Hero with 2 damage 2 attacks, even with the fish pitching in.

===Troops===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Namarti_Thralls.pdf Namarti Thralls]:''' (Battleline, NAMARTI, 130/360, Min:10, Max:30). Namarti Thralls are the quintessential aelven infantry: Extremely fragile and insanely killy. Seriously. Wildwood Rangers wish they were this scary. They attack with the standard elite infantry profile of 2 attacks 3+/3+/-1/1, but with the bonus of adding another attack against 1 Wound models and adding 1 to the damage against models with 4 or more Wounds. However, they also run around with 1 Wound, a 5+ Save and a paltry Bravery of 6. They also have Icon Bearers who gain one more attack and lets them reroll battleshock. Updated FAQ states that you can have 1 Icon bearer per every 10 models. The only thing that holds them back is that their weapons only have 1" of range, so you need to be careful with how to place them.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Namarti_Reavers.pdf Namarti Reavers]:''' (Battleline with an Isharann Hero as general, NAMARTI, 130, Min:10, Max:20). Namarti Reavers are fast (8" and rerolls run) and equipped with really weird bows. At 18", they get one shot at 4+/4+/-/1, which isn't exactly stellar. At 9", they instead get three shots at the same profile. Still not incredible, but that sure is a lot of shots. And if they get into melee? Each of them has a Sword-Liberator's worth of attack. So these are Archers that are only effective at extremely short ranges. Think of them as less versatile but more killy Shadow Warriors and you're not far off.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Akhelian_Ishlaen_Guard.pdf Akhelian Ishlaen Guard]:''' (Battleline with an Akhelian Hero as general, AKHELIAN, 140, Min:3, Max:12). Defendy cavalry. Huh. Ishlaen Guard is fast and has decent damage output, but their true strength lies in their shields. [[Awesome|They ignore Rend]] and gain +1 to their saves when they charge, which they will since they move 14" and reroll charges thanks to their musician. So the opponent has to throw Mortal Wounds at them just to reliably get past their saves and even then each of the buggers has 4 Wounds.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Akhelian_Morrsarr_Guard.pdf Akhelian Morrsarr Guard]:''' (Battleline with an Akhelian Hero as general, AKHELIAN, 170, Min:3, Max:12) Same basic profile as the Ishlaen, but with 1 less attack on the weapons and no ability to ignore Rend. This seems lacking, especially considering they cost twenty points more. But then you notice that their spears gain Damage 2 and -2 Rend on the charge and that they can, once per game, drop 0.83 Mortal Wounds per rider on whatever pisses you off and you realize that they are wall breakers instead of walls. That said, just because they're missing the defensive abilities of the Ishlaen, that doesn't mean they're frail, as they still rock 4 Wounds with a 4+ Save. Got jacked up to 170 points in GHB 2019, not enough to make a massive difference.

*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Akhelian_Allopexes.pdf Akhelian Allopex]:''' (AKHELIAN, 120, Min:1, Max:4) DUUNNN DUNNN… DUUUUNNNN DUUN… Chariots in all but name. Each has two riders, one who swings a spear and one of which mans a harpoon with either 3 Damage 1 shot or 1 Damage 3 shots. The shark itself has a bunch of scary attacks and 8 Wounds at a 4+ Save, so they are tough, fast and bring the pain. That said, don't trust the harpoon to do much damage, as it's mainly there to trigger their ability: If they charge while within 12" of a model with wounds allocated to it (like that Blightking you just hit with a harpoon), they reroll charges. Very nice with a Soulscryer. Finally, they can be taken in units of up to 4, which is very risky but with a potentially huge payoff. Risky because they have Bravery 6, so you run the very real risk of losing 120 point Sharks to battleshock, however, in exchange, units of them make for an incredible target for the Akhelian King's Command. It'd be wasted on a single Allopex but on a unit of three or four? Oh dear. Just make sure you use Inspiring Presence on them until ''High Tide'' rolls around. Got dropped down to 120 points in GHB2019, cheaper than any of the Eel Cavalry but probably still not enough to make them competitive.

===Behemoths===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Akhelian_Leviadon.pdf Akhelian Leviadon]:''' (Behemoth, 350) Sea turtles, mate! Very scary in several ways. Not only is it very strong in melee, but it also spreads a 12" range bubble of cover around. Great, you might say, 3+ Save and guaranteed cover. But nope, remember, Monsters don't benefit from cover in Matched. Still amazing. 16 Wounds at a 3+ Save that spread cover to the rest of your army. It has 2 Volley guns as opposed to the Allopex's 1, <s> but unfortunately multiple weapons doesn't give more shots, so only 6 shots at 24 isn't anything to sneeze at either </s> the Allopex's volley gun has 3 shots and the Leviadon was updated to have 6, so it does have twice the shots. Besides magic, the Leviadon is probably the best source of Mortal Wounds for Idoneth Deepkin. With the Morsarr Guard only delivering their deadly charge once per game, the Leviadon can bring a flat 6 mortal wounds when his jaw hits on a 6+ and wounds on a 2+. Now it would be absolutely fantastic if we had anything to improve our chances to hit, instead of just messing with the enemy (Though most stuff hits on a 3+, so we shouldn't really complain.)

===Eidolon of Mathlann===
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Eidolon_of_Mathlann_Storm.pdf Aspect of the Storm]:''' The melee version is effectively a one-trick pony. He charges really really well and can charge after falling back, so he reaps his charge bonuses every turn. Among those charge bonuses is the fact that he heals D3 wounds when he does, which means that he will never ever die, between the regen, the 12 Wounds at a 3+ Save, the potential save-after-the-save from an artefact and the ability to walk out of inopportune fights. His damage output is merely okay for such an expensive model, though, so you need to get some Namarti or Akhelian Guard into his reroll 1s To Wound bubble in order for him to make his points back.
*'''[https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads//ENG_Eidolon_of_Mathlann_Sea.pdf Aspect of the Sea]:''' The caster version is very powerful. Not only is he not too helpless in melee and armed with a shooting attack just in case, he also casts twice a turn and gets two unique spells, so he's very much not reliant on your lore spells. Especially his ''Tsunami of Terror'' spell, which debuffs D6 enemy units with -1 To Hit and to Bravery. That's a massive load, since he messes with both battleshock and enemy damage output. Also, he can reroll a casting roll per turn, but if he does not, he heals D3 Wounds, which is an interesting risk/reward mechanic. However, being the calmer of the two, he does not have the same reroll 1s To Wound aura. Instead he gives friendly units +3(!) to Bravery. This is pretty damn good, actually. This is really important, because your footsloggers only have a bravery of Six. But between the Eidolon, Volturnus and Lotann you get their bravery way up, which makes it easier to keep them alive and bring them back with your Soulrender. All in all, he is probably better support for your army and neither of them are great damage dealers, so he's better all around.

==Battalions==
===From Battletome Idoneth Deepkin===
*'''Royal Council:''' (610pt. min.)
''Requires an Akhelian King (Or Volturnos), a Tidecaster, and a Soulscryer. ''

Adds a new Command Ability, if the Akhelian King is the general. You can add 3" move until next hero phase for 3 friendly Idoneth Deepkin within 12" of the Akhelian King. The Soulscryer and the Tidecaster have to be within 3" of the Akhelian King to use this. Effectively nerfs the Soulscryer's ability to outflank because he needs to be within 3" of the King to use the Ability of this Battalion.

*'''Akhelian Corps:''' (850pt. min.)
''Requires a Akhelian Leviadon, 2-4 units of Akhelian guards and 1-2 units of Akhelian Allopexes''

You can reroll a hit, a wound, a save, a run or a charge roll for one unit of this battalion wholly within 12" of the big turtle per phase.

*'''Namarti Corps:''' (700pt. min.)
''Requires a Isharann Soulrender, 2-6 units of Namarti Thralls and 2-4 units of Namarti Reavers''

The Soulrender resurrects 3 models instead of D3 with his Lurelight ability.

*'''Alliance of Wood and Sea:''' (1480pt. min.)
''Requires (deep breath....) a Isharann Tidecaster, 2 units of Akhelian guards, a unit of Akhelian Allopexes, a unit of Namarti Thralls, a unit of Namarti Reavers, and some Sylvaneth - a branchwych, 2 units of Dryads and a Treelord Ancient''

The Sylvaneth in the Battalion benefit from Emissary of the Deep Places regardless of your chosen Enclave.

Essentially a full Start collecting box of Sylvaneth, plus 4 more dyads. Ideal for an existing Sylvaneth players wanting to ''branch'' out to something new (pun intended). But does it work as an useful army?

You could add two units of Kurnoth Hunters as allies (given anyone playing this will most likely have some lying around), but they wouldn't get the Tides Of Death (unless you went Ionrach).

===From Battleforce Boxes===
*'''Deepsurge Raiding Party''' (660pt. min.) (not legal in matched play)
''Requires an Isharann Tidecaster, 1 unit of Akhelian Allopexes, 1 Unit of Akhelian Morrsarr Guard or 1 unit of Akhelian Ishlaen Guard, 1 unit of Namarti Thralls, 1 unit of Namarti Reavers ''

This gives the Tidecaster the ability to negate the first wound allocation to a model from the battalion instead of itself.

==Super-Battalions==
===From Battletome Idoneth Deepkin===
*'''Phalanx:''' (3830pt. min.) (30810pt. max.)!!!
''1 Royal Council, 2-4 Akhelian Corps, 2-4 Namarti Corps''

The big one. Once per battle you get an additional High Tide.

==The Enclaves==
They are akin to the Daughters of Khaine Temples. Each has unique special rules for your army and allows you to upgrade one of your Warscroll Battalions
*'''Ionrach:''' +1 to cast and unbind rolls for your Wizards, which, as you know, is invaluable. However, your Warlord Trait is locked into the Ionrach-exclusive ''Emissary of the Deep Places'', which provides your allies access to the ''Tides of Death'' rules. Great if you have allies (or mercenaries), worthless if you don't. Also your ''Royal Council'' can have up to 2 Soulscryers and Tidecasters. Also note that with Ionrach, your allies DO NOT gain the benefit of forgotten nightmares (they still screen your Idoneth units however).

*'''Dhom-Hain:''' Akhelians and Namarti reroll 1s To Hit on the charge. <s>Relatively meaningless as Lotann and the Akhelian King respectively do the same whether you charged or not, but nice if you find yourself outside the relevant bubbles.</s> Lotann and the Akhelian King only do it for units that are WHOLLY within 12 inches of them, and this rule applies to anything not an Isharann or an Eidolon. So if you want to keep your entire, very mobile, army inside a 12 inch bubble, this rule is meaningless, otherwise it's very good. Your Akhelians also reroll Wound rolls against Monsters (not just in melee, so feel free to reroll those wounds on your Allopex and Leviadon's shooting attacks when firing at a monster). Interesting against some armies, worthless against others. Also your ''Akhelian Corps'' can have up to 6 units of Akhelian Guard. Dhom-hain is notable as one of the Enclaves that have no restrictions whatsoever.

*'''Fuethán:''' You reroll 1s To Wound with your mounts. Also, during ''Flood Tide'' all your units reroll 1s To Hit and ''Ebb Tide'' turns into another ''Flood Tide''. You'll really miss that fall back + charge on turn 4, but in exchange, a Tidecaster can make you super fast by giving you ''Flood Tide'' on turn 1 and ''High Tide'' on turn 2. The Tidecaster has to be the general for that, which locks you out of Akhelians being battleline and lets you not use the command abilities of the Akhelian Kings. Also, your ''Phalanx'' can contain up to 6 ''Akhelian Corps''. Not that you will ever use a ''Phalanx''.

*'''Mor'Phann:''' Your Soulrenders raise an additional 3 models. This is huge and out-Death's Death armies. However, your Tidecasters can't take Lore spells and instead get ''Freezing Mists'', which drastically lowers an enemy unit's Pile In move. Also, your ''Namarti Corps'' can have 6 units of Thralls.

*'''Nautilar:''' Your units reroll all failed Hit rolls if they were charged that turn. Not that your opponent needed more discouragement from charging your Namarti. Their Tidecasters lose access to lore spells and instead get ''Protective Barrier'', which targets a friendly unit and lower the Rend of any enemy attacking them. Also your ''Akhelian Corps'' can have up to 2 Leviadons.

*'''Briomdar:''' Your Soulscryers can take up to 3 units along and place them 18" away instead of 12. Also, your units can move over terrain (but not enemy units) as if they were flying. Not too great since most of your army already flies. Also your ''Namarti Corps'' can take up to 6 units of Reavers. Again, it is notable that the Briomdar have no restrictions to their name.

==Allies==
*'''Darkling Covens''': Eldritch Council and your Reavers do what they do better, but Word of Pain from a Sorceress does help with -1 to Hit spam in a mage heavy list.
*'''Daughters of Khaine''': The best option by a long shot. What they bring are cheap and expendable units of 90 points per 5 Harpies that can Deep Strike in, and help block shots for the rest of your army via ''Forgotten Nightmares''. 2 Units of Javelin Harpies, or one unit of Sword Harpies is pretty likely to one shot a 5 wound hero to boot. Doomfire Warlocks are also solid allies for a Cavalry army and easily able to keep up as well as providing good shooting and a source of mortal Wounds. Your best bet here is probably a unit of Khinerai, seeing as how they can deepstrike independently from any other unit, and offer a decently strong enough attack to help shift an chaff unit off a back field objective. It doesn't hurt that they are cheap points wise too.
**'''Alternate Opinion:''' While Daughters of Khaine are indeed an extremely powerful force on their own, they don't make very good allies for a number of reasons. They excel at being an extremely aggressive force when you pile on their faction bonuses (escalating table, 6+FNP, Temple abilities, extra prayers, their NUTS spell lore, not to mention any number of internally consistent abilities and rules) on their own without those they tend towards being overpriced or fragile. While you might get some mileage out of a unit of Khinerai or Doomfire Warlocks, you'd probably be better off with some more Idoneth.
*'''Eldrich Council''': Loremaster dropping Hand of glory on a King, or Storm Eidolon can do nasty things to the enemy. Archmage on Horse can keep up with the army and protect you from Mortal Wounds. Archmage on Dragon is always nice to have plus Dispel Magic is a very useful spell to have access too. Just remember that Loremasters and Archmages are susceptible to being sniped out.
*'''Order Serpentis''': More expendable cavalry to soak up fire for your Akhelians could be nice. Or, you know, just add a Dragon or Hydra and go Ionrach so it profits from ''Tides of Death''.
*'''Scourge Privateers''': Other than being great thematically, these aren't all too useful. On the flip side, Idoneth Deepkin make amazing allies for the Privateers.
*'''Shadowblades''': An allied Assassin could be interesting but really, Daughters of Khaine do everything they do but better.
*'''Stormcast Eternals''': For a Namarti-heavy army, Liberators or Sequitors make fantastic cannon fodder when combined with a Lord-Castellant and ''Forgotten Nightmares''. Other than that, Vanguard-Raptors make for some nice budget shooting. Fulminators are a nasty addition to any Cavalry heavy army, and combined with ''Tides of Death'', will get your opponent to flip the table fast. A Knight Azyros can give your units a +1 toHit for enemies in 10". Also, a Knight Vexillor might use his redeploy ability to make your Stormcasts keep up with your Idoneths.
*'''Sylvaneth''': The only things worth considering here are Kurnoth Hunters for some additional shooting and Tree Revenants in case you want to go Warmachine hunting without investing hundreds of points into a Soulscryer and an escort.
*'''Wanderers''': Fitting a unit of 20 Glade Guard in your army provides you with a highly reliable "remove lynchpin" button. Combining them with the Deepkin is going to make people even more angry than usual, though. Sisters of the Thorn are an awesome addition to Cavalry army and provide a very nice spell to boot. Eternal Guards are rerolling saves of 1 and 2, if they are in cover. With the Ionrach rule, they will profit from the cover of the Tides of Death. Also, they are as fast as Namarti Thralls and cost 70 point per 10 models. A Waywatcher has the invisible hunter rule, which gives shooting units, that target him -1 to hit. He can give this to other Wanderer units within 18" for 1 command point.
*'''Gotrek:''' Despite costing 520pts, Gotrek can be brought as an ally in any Order faction even if that's more than the usual allies allowance. It's worth mentioning for the Ionrach enclave because he'll get the benefit of the Tides. Gotrek's an absolute beast in melee but is let down by his low movement and the fact he can never be teleported/ambushed onto the board etc; however, he would love to be able to run and charge, and retreat and charge, and Ionrach lets him do that.

===Mercenary Companies===
The best use for mercenaries is with the Ionrach enclave, since it allows you to make use of your Warlord Trait by stacking ''Tides of Death'' on top of the companies usual rules.

*'''Blacksmoke Battery:''' By remaining static, and not being melee, they won't be able to make use of most of your buffs.

*'''Greyfyrd:''' Fyreslayers are an incredibly good tarpit if you get the right units, and this can play well with ''Forgotten Nightmares''.

*'''Grugg Brothers:''' They are glass cannon monsters that will benefit from the extra cover and speed.

*'''Gutstuffers:''' Combine their mandatory charge reroll with ''Tides of Death'' for a great assault unit.

*'''Nimyard’s Rough-Riders:''' Their outflanking ability might have some synergy with ''Forgotten Nightmares'', and their hit & run tactics with ''Tides of Death''.

*'''Order of the Blood-Drenched Rose:''' These guys are terrifying, but also very expensive, and you have fast cavalry already.

*'''Rampagers:''' [[meme|Gotta go fast]]. If you don't get a charge on turn one, you will on turn two.

*'''Skroug’s Menagerie:''' The most versatile company thanks to it's big range of units, all of which will benefit from the tides to some extent.

*'''Sons of the Lichemaster:''' These guys are... Nothing special, really. All int all ii is better if you grab Rampagers or ghouls if for cheap and good hordes.

*'''Tenebrous Court:''' If you want to hit hard, take the crypt horrors, and if you need a good, tarpit horde, go with 40 ghouls. The tides will help both in their quest for a charnel banquet. Special attention drawn to the Grymwatch, who make excellent monster hunters.

*'''Gotrek, son of Gurni:''' Gotrek is the biggest murder machine in AoS now, bar none. Greater demons, gods of death, even [[Archaon]], all have no chance. He's so badass he can simply ignore the 1/5th allies points restriction if you take him, and with ''Tides of Death'' you can buff him even more.

==Army Building==
There aren't a ton of options for building diverse armies since the Idoneth model line consists of 8 Leaders, 5 units with only one unconditional battleline and a behemoth. However with the addition of Enclaves your army will perform a bit differently and allows for a small but not insignificant level of specialization.

===What to start with?===
* As the name suggest, the Start Collecting! kit is a great way to start your collection, giving you 10 Thralls, 3 Eels and one Soulrender.

* Battleforce box being released for Holidays 2018. $170 (USD) will net you a Tidecaster, 10 Namarti Thralls, 10 Namarti Reavers, 3 Eel guard riders of your choice, and 2 Allopexes. Not a bad variety to start with, and is over a hundred dollars in savings.

*Grab an Akhelian King kit and build either Volturnos or the stock King model. Both are fine, though Volturnos outperforms his nameless counterpart before taking Artefacts and Command Traits into consideration. Either model is a fine addition to your army.

{{Age_of_Sigmar_Tactics}}

Be'lakor

2020-03-14T14:03:52Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* Warhammer Fantasy */

[[File:Be'larkor First Greater Daemon.png|350px|thumb|right|]]

'''Be'lakor the Dark Master''' is the first (and debatably only) [[Daemon Prince]] of [[Chaos Undivided]]. Of course, this claim of "Only" is suspect with the unclear status of [[Lorgar]] and [[Perturabo]]'s alignments.

Due to his nature as a daemon prince of chaos, he's been sighted in both [[Warhammer Fantasy Battles]] as well as [[Warhammer 40,000]]. In both, he began as an ancient warlord from ages past who fought in the name of the [[Chaos Gods]] before they decided to elevate him as a Daemon Prince. Then he got cocky, thought himself better than his four owners, and then got royally bitchslapped back into line.

==Warhammer Fantasy==
Be'lakor was one of the earliest Chaos warlords, leading vast hordes of Daemons to ravage the world long before the Elves rose up against them. He impressed the Chaos Gods so much they turned him into a [[Daemon Prince]], the first time they ever did that to a mortal follower of Chaos Gods. However, his four parents began bickering for ownership, each offering some presents in exchange for his loyalty. He decided to then take all their presents and fled to the mortal realms without doing any of their favors. He came during the First Great War Against Chaos, bending many to his will and carving a warpath - unwittingly carrying out the tasks the four set before him. As time carried on, more Daemon Princes were raised, siphoning the power and attention that was once exclusively his and eventually sparking a great war as these new princes sought to carve out territory. This distracted team Chaos from stopping the elves in [[Ulthuan]] from creating the Great Vortex, thus stemming the tide of badstuffs spilling into the world.

As punishment, the big four made him become the one to crown Everchosens of Chaos while never getting to become the Everchosen himself, which pissed him off to no end. This is a retcon though, as originally Be'lakor got arrogant and thought he was better than the Chaos Gods, so Tzeentch served him a big piece of humble pie by denying him a physical body and forcing him to crown each Everchosen. At one point Be'lakor co-opted this by possessing one of the Everchosen candidates (who became known as the Shadowlord), but Be'lakor's power destroyed the host body and he was stuck back in the role. In the expansion Shadows of Albion, Be'lakor was the main bad guy there, manipulating people to take the power and artifacts of Albion for himself, before failing and abandoning that plan.

With the latest Everchosen, [[Archaon]], Be'lakor was once again forced to crown the Everchosen of Chaos with the final artifact. Be'lakor played a big part in the [[Storm of Chaos]] campaign, but that has since been retconned. Although he still shows up from time to time, he no longer appears to be quite as powerful as he once was, although he is still a Daemon Prince of [[Chaos Undivided]], which is a massive accomplishment in and of itself.

During [[The End Times]], Be'lakor was all set to return to his former glory and then some, plotting to become the fifth Chaos God by breaking into ''Kazad Drengazi'', the Fortress of the First Slayer ([[Grimnir]], natch), a temple containing the Chaos Gate that Grimnir used to get to the Realm of Chaos in the first place. Be'lakor used the power of the Chaos Gate to break Tzeentch's curse, regain his physical form, and summon four greater daemons, one of each of the Chaos Gods; two of them had had their shit ruined by [[Gotrek_%26_Felix|Gotrek and Felix]] once before. Be'lakor and his posse planned to backstab Grimnir from behind, at which point Be'lakor would take all of Grimnir's power and ascend to become the fifth Chaos God, but Gotrek and Felix showed up and wrecked Be'lakor and the Bloodthirster, while Grimnir kicked the asses of the Keeper of Secrets, Lord of Change, and Great Unclean One. It looked like Be'lakor and Gotrek's duel could go either way at first, then Gotrek ''hit Be'lakor with the Bloodthirster'' and kicked all their asses back to the Realm of Chaos, ruining Be'lakor's plans. He later caused mischief in Athel Loren by manipulating the Khaintes and forest spirits to attack the elves, though he did play a major role in dooming the world by freeing Mannfred von Carstein from his imprisonment and ensuring the Chaos Gods learnt of Lileath's haven. But he got captured, gave the Incarnates info under threat of being Nagash's guinea pig otherwise tehn they forced him to go get trapped in a magic ruby by [[Alarielle]] for the rest of eternity. One true Everchosen my ass!

Somehow he managed to escape into [[Age of Sigmar|the new world]], only to get his ass royally handed to him by the [[Lizardmen]] dive bombing him with Pterodactyl riders. Embarrassed by this poor showing, he has since taken into hiding from the spotlight once more. That said, [[Archaon]] seems to be following his footsteps, as Archie's been elevated to the "High Marshal of Chaos", which gives him almost free reign to control or kill the champions of Chaos while still claiming no exclusive loyalty to any of the four (now five with the [[Horned Rat]]'s ascension) - the only difference being that he's still arguably human. In Wrath of the Everchosen, it's revealed he's forming his own faction of Chaos followers with the (kinda-secret) goal of (eventually) overthrowing Archaon. Despite that, Bea'lakor worked with Archaon to defend the Eightpoints against the armies of Nagash, managing to personally slay Lady Olynder.

==Warhammer 40,000==
In [[Warhammer 40,000]], Be'lakor was the first Daemon Prince, as well as the first (and allegedly "last", but there have been two more since) Daemon Prince created through the action of all four Chaos Gods ([[Derp|apparently]] [[Lorgar]] and [[Perturabo]] were special exceptions or something (though knowing Pert, I wouldn't be surprised if he was 75% Khornate or something)), and quickly proved to be difficult to control even at the best of times. Apparently his creation gave him the Daemonic equivalent of daddy issues and now he spends most of his time trying to kill all other Champions of Chaos, including other Daemon Princes. The Chaos Gods tolerate him mostly because his wild-card status makes him an excellent pawn in their power struggles, something Be'lakor himself is completely unaware of (as he thinks he still has free will and just wants to cement his position as Chaos' sole champion).

Recently, he's shown up to "help" with [[Abaddon]]'s [[Black Crusade]]s by giving him [[Troll|seemingly helpful advice that often leads to unexpectedly heavy losses]], all in an attempt to undermine his credibility (well, more so than he does on his own). In a stunning display of insight, Abaddon saw through his ruse, but allowed him to remain within the Black Legion in order to keep tabs on him and better prepare for his sudden but inevitable betrayal. The Imperium isn't even that aware that he exists, as Be'lakor has been very careful about concealing his presence from history (with the unwitting help of a Magos who learned just enough about him to know that he exists, but not enough to realize that he's a Daemon Prince).

He's also been shown to be in contact with [[Ahriman]]. No word on whether Ahriman has accepted his offer of being made his greatest champion in exchange for his service, however, but seeing as Ahzek rejects even Tzeentch's own offerings to be HIS chosen champion, still thinks he's independent of any god (despite having Tzeentch's mark on the tabletop), and actively tries to become the fifth Chaos god himself, it's a good bet he told Be'lakor to go fuck himself with someone else's force sword.

==Trivia==
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOiQOOrj-fY He has a kickass band]

{{Daemons-Characters}}

Karanak

2020-03-14T13:55:28Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103:

[[File:Karanak.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Khorne's goodest boy]]

{{Topquote|I'm the dog, the big bad dog. I'm the dog, the bounty hunter.|Ozzy Osbourne, making a surprisingly accurate description of Karanak}}

'''Karanak''' is a [[Flesh Hound]] in the service of [[Khorne]]. Unlike normal Flesh Hounds, he has three heads which apparently allow him to track his prey's trails in space and time, as well as their thoughts. Basically, if for some reason this super-Cerberus decides to come after you, you're pretty boned. Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, only that it flows, but he is still a god of honor. Offer him a skull from an unworthy kill in tribute, or just piss him off, and he will send his favorite dog after you.

==On the Tabletop==
Karanak acts as Khorne's other named Herald. Karanak gets to reroll all to-hit rolls and to-wound rolls against a character selected at the start of the game, grants his entire unit rage (hilarious on Bloodcrushers if they can make it in) and causes any psykers within 12" of him to peril whenever they roll doubles. He has Scout, like every Flesh Hound.

Bizarrely, he isn'tnot part of the Khorne Daemonkin codex, despite his buddy [[Skulltaker]] making it in. It's anyone's guess as to why.

{{Template:Daemons-Characters}}

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category: Age of Sigmar]]
[[Category: Blades of Khorne]]

Skulltaker

2020-03-14T13:48:49Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103:

[[File:Skulltaker8th.PNG|300px|thumbnail|right|[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7KK7bXJV2c TOASTY!!!]]]
Of all of Khorne's Bloodletters in both 40K and Fantasy, none is as angry as U'Zhul, known more widely as '''Skulltaker'''.

The moment Khorne created him was also the day he scored his first kill by slaying the first creature he met via chopping off its head. That creature was another Bloodletter.

After scoring his 888th skull for the Skull Throne, Khorne promoted U'Zhul to the rank of Sacred Executioner, and thus he earned his moniker of Skulltaker.

Skulltaker is extremely competent and dead serious when it comes to fighting (and that's saying something about him, as Bloodletters treat war and slaughter as serious business). When the fighting is extreme, and the slaughter is immense, he will walk the battlefield looking for exceptionally powerful warriors and challenge them to manly combat one on one. When not waging war he wanders the Mortal Realms (or realspace), showing up at a place and demanding that someone face him unless they want a bloodbath. When someone accepts his challenge, he briefly salutes them before attacking.

Unfortunately for his enemies, Skulltaker is a master duellist beyond and above the capabilities any other Bloodletter could possibly achieve. The daemon simply cuts off his adversary's limbs (but never slays them), grabs their heads and utters the eight Words of Sacrifice that wreaths his victim's heads in magical flames that burn away their flesh; this leaves only a bare skull that he throws into a sack he carries, along with the other skulls he collected while fighting. He'll often lift said skulls up in the air for everyone to see them before putting them on his cape. Despite duelling many heroes, there are only three confirmed stories where Skulltaker lost the duel; one of those times was against Sigmar himself, which left Skulltaker with a permanent scar and a grudge against Sigmar's followers and descendants.

After a battle, he returns to Khorne's Brass Citadel to give the skulls he collected as offering to the Blood God. Most of them Khorne collects, but the skulls of the most exceptional of opponents he makes Skulltaker keep as personal trophies that he sews into his cloak.

[[File:Skulltaker.jpg|200px|thumb|right]]
The Bloodletter's achievements are as follows:
* Slaying a quarter of the Grey Knight Brother Captains during the First War for Armageddon. Even though this only adds up to two, this is still enough to seal his status as total badass.
* Slaying the Ork Warboss Grimsnag Urk and his Mega Armoured Nobz on Agripina-6.
* Slaying 17 Eldar Exarchs on Haranshemash (seems they gravely underestimated him).
* Dueled [[Castellan Crowe]] for SEVERAL HOURS (keep in mind that the Grey Knight <strike>cheated</strike> ''evened the handicap'' by throwing super-special holy water at Skulltaker before the duel).

<s>Weirdly, before Skulltaker was released as a Daemon special character, the name U'zhul was given to the Daemon inside the Slayer of Kings, the [[Daemon Weapon]] wielded by [[Archaon]]. Whether this is a sign of something or just GW not fact-checking their lore again, who knows?</s> The daemon in Archaon's sword is called ''U'zuhl'' and is a Bloodthirster.

== Gallery ==
<gallery>
Image:DaemonsSkulltakerMain 445x319.jpg
</gallery>

{{Daemons-Characters}}
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category: Age of Sigmar]]
[[Category: Blades of Khorne]]

Slaanesh

2020-03-14T13:40:20Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* Facts */

[[File:Slaanesh_mark.png|center]]
{{awesome}}
{{heresy}}
{{Promotions}}
{{/d/}}
{{sick|The hermaphrodite goddess of rape who wants to eat everyone's souls and rape them forever.}}

[[Image:Slaanesh_by_baklaher-d7dvohn.jpg|thumb|500px|right|Slaanesh... tempting you to join a [[rape|party in which you will never forget...]] [[Rule 34|also now in even more NSFW!]]]]

<span style='color:purple;font-size:100%'>'''''PORN FOR THE PORN GOD! SMUT FOR THE SMUT THRONE! RAPE FOR THE RAPE TRAIN!<br> - The Motto that Slaanesh wants YOU to believe in'''''</span>

{{Topquote|Give yourself over to absolute pleasure. Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh - erotic nightmares beyond any measure, and sensual daydreams to treasure forever. Can't you just see it? Don't dream it, be it.|Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Rocky Horror Picture Show}}

{{Topquote|To be loved, feelings must be rationed. To love, the doors of hysteria, fantasy, and madness may be flung open.|Anton LaVey}}

{{Topquote|An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom.|Charles Baudelaire}}

{{Topquote|Everything is good when it is excessive.|Donatien-Alphonse-François, AKA Marquis de Sade}}

{{Topquote|Blood does more than turn me on, it makes me cum. And more than the sight of it, I love the taste of it. The taste of hot, freshly killed blood... Kill everyone now! Condone first degree murder! Advocate cannibalism! Eat shit! Filth are my politics! Filth is my life! Take whatever you like.|Divine, Pink Flamingoes}}

==Introduction: The Slaanesh Inquisition==
[[Image:Slaanesh by genzoman-d2y8ylf.jpg|thumb|500px|[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2qT7GylRxw And to think... I hesitated.] Wait, one whip is held in the hand and the other is held in the...]]
Behold '''Slaanesh''', also known as '''Shaarnor (to [[Cult Of Slaanesh|Elves and some humans]]), Shornaal (to [[Warriors of Chaos|humans and some Elves]]), The Dark Prince, the Lord of Excess, Leviathan, Lord of the Labyrinth, The Sweet Transvestite, The Lusty Argonian Maid, the Colossal Pervert''' '''the Ultimate Trap''' and multiple other names. Slaanesh is the [[Chaos God]] of [[/d/|perversion, Hentai]], [[Extra Heresy|shamelessness]], [[Furry|excess]], [[Rebecca Black|the most disgusting Pop Music in the history of ever]]. Heretical Fa/tg/uys cannot resist the most disgusting [[heresy]] of masturbating furiously to Slaanesh and their [[daemonette]]s.

Slaanesh was 'born' (read: actively began to do shit rather than just being some nebulous, mostly-passive entity in the Warp) <s>in the 1800s, when [[Tzeentch]] tricked major film producers to establish a colony in the anarchistic frontiers of California where they could practice their most lecherous vices</s> at the fall of the [[Eldar]], when all their torture, [[rape]], S&M, bondage, decadence, eventually tore the fabric of reality a new one and gave birth to Slaanesh along with the [[Eye of Terror]], killing the majority of their race. Thus, the final chaos god is known as the one that was literally murderfucked into existence. As a result, Slaanesh owns almost every last Eldar soul in the entire galaxy. In the event of an Eldar dying without a spirit stone, he or she becomes Slaanesh's sex toy for all of eternity day and night forever and ever (excluding Exodites, whose soul will automatically go to their planet's world spirit and Harlequins, who are scooped up by the [[Cegorach|great clown]] himself, and the faithful of Ynnead). That is why Eldar are willing to manipulate entire worlds into [[Exterminatus|exterminating]] each other just to save one of their own. The [[Dark Eldar]] takes this up to eleven by sacrificing other souls to Slaanesh so that they don't get eaten. [[Khorne]] hates Slaanesh because he (or perhaps she? or both?) is a prissy little shit, but Slaanesh is concerned with the other Chaos gods only insofar as they can be a diverting plaything. Rumors that their relationship is beyond hate and occasional angry sex are just that; Khorne, certainly, is not telling.

Of course, that paragraph is Slaanesh's WH40K history. In WHFB, Slaanesh has no real backstory and sort of just came out of nowhere like the other Chaos gods.

Among other things, Slaanesh is the god of sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. Slaanesh is fueled by excess and pleasure, which means gratuitous amounts of anything generally fall under its influence. This actually becomes a big problem for Khorne, the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]] and the other Chaos Gods, whose worshipers have to constantly try not to enjoy themselves too much lest they end up feeding the Warp's whipping bitch. Especially when the Inquisition is all too enthusiastic about whipping heretics.

Many horny juveniles who have just found Warhammer seem to be obsessed with Slaanesh being a God(ess) of sexual pleasure. While [[fluff]] claims this is not true, in practical terms Slaanesh is the deity of pleasure, which can be broad. Pleasure can be derived from various sources, as such this can be anything from sex, eating, companionship, and so on and so forth. However, because Chaos is Chaos, Slaanesh is mostly associated with the extremes of pleasure. Lechery, gluttony, extreme masochism, and the likes, are the pleasures their followers partake in because Slaanesh's credo is to experience everything to the fullest. This basically means: why settle for one loving wife to have sex with you when you can have a hive world of loving concubines to satiate your desires? Or why eat one disgustingly expensive luxury meal when you could eat a Paradise world's supply of the stuff? Why just resort to cutting yourself to feel the pleasure of pain when you could be chopping off lumps of your flesh to heighten the sensation of pain? Numerous examples of 40k lore have made it apparent that while those who fall to Slaanesh might start off with a desire to fulfill their rather run-of-the-mill baser instincts, it always spirals out of control. For example, in the novel ''Shadowsword'', a young nobleman makes a deal with a devilish creature so that he can possess and sleep with his lady love, who is also his first cousin. By the time all is said and done, a grand party to welcome the forces of Chaos to their world turns into a charnel scene where the guests ''imagine'' themselves to be dancing and enjoying fine food and drink, but in reality they are tearing each other apart with their bare hands and engaging in cannibalism; others believe that they are embracing when their bodies and flesh are literally melding together. These are the types of scenes that truly grant Slaanesh power.

One would think that if, as claimed, Slaanesh was the lord of all ''pleasure'' then Slaanesh would be omnipotent because, in the end, biological and psychological fact tells us that every living thing with a fucking Neuron acts in order to feel pleasure and escape pain (the "pleasure principle"). However, the point of Slaanesh is not just to revel in ''any'' pain or pleasure, but to gain power from exposing mortals to the types of experiences that a sane person ''could not'' and ''would not'' ever be able to imagine in the first place. For all but the very strongest and most devout, this pollutes and twists their very souls to such an extent that they remain in thrall to Slaanesh forever. Such horizons of experience and sensation are far, far beyond the predictable inclinations and fetishes of your typical 4chan fa/tg/uy.

Even [[Khorne]], Slaanesh's primary rival, feels pleasure in killing, and Tzeentch feels pleasure in [[Just as Planned]]. That is why 40k lore tends to focus on Slaanesh as a God of the most disgusting pleasures ever, not as a God of all pleasure. Additionally, in the [[fluff]], it does state that most pleasures (like regular love or the desire to eat) that might be covered under the "pleasure principle" are too "weak" to sustain Slaanesh. Slaanesh being usually named the "God of Excess" it's more that they gain power from OVER-indulging in the small things like sex and eating, which in 40k is actually more rare than people would think. Considering that it's damn hard for anyone to get more than a piece of stale toast and a dry handjob before a grueling 48 hours of avoiding death in the name of the Emprah in the far corner of some forgotten forge-world, the only way to get enough sex, drugs, and partying in to impress Slaanesh on your average imperial world, is to be a ruthless, controlling, evil, bastard. (''It is worth noting that GW seems to have picked up somewhat on this fact. As of the latest daemon codex it does mention that Slaanesh has a particular way of influencing the other chaos gods and that they are all weary of them given that they draw some strength from the extreme behaviours they promote in their followers and are subject to themselves.'')

Slaanesh is also associated with the arts and creativity, as creativity means pursuing one's own personal desires. Self-indulgence and personal expression are the bedrock of the arts, after all. Those attracted to Slaanesh could theoretically be more than just aristocratic ravers, but also particularly eccentric artists, writers, etc. Slaanesh is Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll in the purest sense of the word; not just the orgy after the concert, but the brilliant concert that caused the orgy to begin with. One could assume that, in order to prevent Slaanesh's influence from spreading, the Imperium of Man would censor not just content but style. A radically structured poem, a painting with hints of sexual content, even a deviation from traditional chord structures would presumably bring the Inquisition to your doorstep.

If Slaanesh had a voice actor, it would be [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc80tFJpTuo Tim Curry] and/or Tilda Swinton.

==What? Warhammer?==
[[File:Slaanesh Old.jpg|thumb|right|150px|The first depiction of Slaanesh in Warhammer art.]]
In the new [[Age of Sigmar]] setting, Slaanesh has gone missing. Tyrion and Malerion worked together to capture Slaanesh, unknowningly helped along by the machinations of Tzeentch. Thus Slaanesh has been removed from the Pantheon of Chaos and replaced by the [[Horned Rat]]. Derp. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIMg2Xw4_8s While it was thought Slaanesh is being kept in a hidden warehouse while Tyrion works him/her over to make Slaanesh give back Aliathra's soul], this is revealed to be mostly true. There was speculation that Slaanesh has been removed as an active part of Age of Sigmar in some attempt by [[Games Workshop]] to make the game more accessible to children. [[Derp|Somehow, they failed to take into account that an incredibly grimdark game with very complicated rules and such a high price of entry isn't going to be popular among kiddies anyways]]. They may be doing this so parents won't be put off by the game and be willing to buy it for their children and to get past the media watchdogs to make the game more mainstream; but that most likely won't work [[Games Workshop|due to reasons discussed on GW's page here]].
[[File:AoSBeholdSlaanesh.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Slaanesh imprisoned: Unable to decide which dildo to use first, Slaanesh is effectively neutralized! Ingenious! (Also, to answer the question you never asked, Slaanesh is not circumcised. Seriously, take a close look at where those chains pierce)]]

Yet hope for Slaanesh faction lovers still remains. With Slaanesh missing, his forces have split between those trying to find and free Slaanesh (the refer to themselves as Seekers), those who are trying to claim their former master's position (they are referred to as Pretenders and consists of every Chaos Lord and Keeper of Secrets that wants to claim their former masters position as the new god of depravity) and those who have continued to be allied to Archaon in his wars against the Mortal Realms (who are referred to as Invaders). This last faction is currently the biggest and is the main Slaanesh force fighting Order; it is mostly being led by Slaanesh's greater daemons who lead Slaanesh's demonic and mortal followers but some have actually looked to venerating Archaon as their replacement deity.

With the release of the Daughter of Khaine battletome it's revealed that Slaanesh have been trapped in the void space between Ulgu (Realm of Shadows) and Hysh (Realm of Light) by the collective work of [[Tyrion]] and [[Teclis]], now gods of the Hysh, [[Malekith|Malerion]], god of Shadow, and [[Morathi]]. There the elf gods are slowly taking back the elf souls the Chaos god had devoured after the End Times, reforging them to their liking, while Slaanesh is trapped in a position that will make it impossible for him to escape. That is, unless Morathi cast a spell to get more souls than it was initially planned for her to receive, a spell that would weaken the chains that are keeping Slaanesh trapped, which of course she did. Now Slaanesh is ever so slowly getting further from Hysh and closer to Ulgu, which enabled Slaanesh's followers to learn where he was. The only things standing in their way are the fact that they can't reach Slaanesh's prison, the elf gods and their forces. Even then, Slaanesh might eventually be able to free itself.

With the announcement of Realm of Chaos: Wrath and Rapture, it appears GW is ready to bring Slaanesh back to the 40k and AoS universes, along with a (daemonic) host of new models. And this did come to pass... Though it isn't as grand as many would have hoped. It has been revealed that the 66 chains holding Slaanesh (real subtle, GW) can be broken by certain depraved or powerful acts, ie, an excess of anger from Khorne, or a Stormhost turning on the people they protect (which did happen and was engineered by Slaanesh taking a leaf from Tzeentch's book). Having broken a handful of the chains Slaanesh cast illusions to prevent the elves from discovering this, and if the majority of chains get shattered Slaanesh will be strong enough to break the rest. If Slaanesh ever did escape, he would immediately try and engulf all of Ulgu and Hysh, securing two whole realms and thereby winning the great game though Khorne would object violently, as would Archaon. However, Archaon still needed Slaanesh and was actively tracking down the trapped god. Archaon eventually succeeded at finding Slaanesh and started working to free him, though Slannesh's sass vexed Archaon. It would've worked eventually, but Archaon had a vision of the Nighthaunt and Bonereapers taking the Shyish realmgate and attacking the Varanspire. Though Archaon was pissed, since he knew the aelf gods would move Slaanesh's prison and tighten security after this, he abandoned Slaanesh and went back to the Allpoints.

== Followers ==
[[File:Slaanesh Banners.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Slaaneshi banners.]]
Slaanesh attracts mortal followers from those seeking to become charismatic and popular, but instead corrupts them to become [[Chris-Chan|colossal perverts]]; alternatively, she may attract followers from those who are already [[Ultramarines|colossal perverts]], and corrupt them to become more charismatic and popular. [[Just as planned]].

Alternatively, Slaanesh sometimes finds those in the mortal realm with far more looks than brains to approach and give them everything they could ever want because she tells them that they simply deserve it, with nothing expected in return...other than them turning into a collossal egotistical hedonist with no sense of responsibility, right and wrong, or empathy as they fuck over creation on whim or for the lulz due to the ultimate entitlement complex possible.

Slaanesh and Khorne actually compete for the same pool of followers more often than you'd think, which is part of their bitter rivalry. A good rule of thumb is this: if a warrior wants to be the ''best'', gets his thrills from making that perfect shot, that perfect move, [[/v/|that perfect 360 noscope,]] to [[powergamer|hone his or her skills the sharpest they can ever be]], or debasing their foes, they're Slaaneshi. If the thrill lies in just killing people-- the pure joy of murder-- and the skill is just a way of facilitating that, they're Khornate. Slaaneshi types also get off on the sensory overload rather than actual killing, even pain. See the Emperor's Children who get carved up by Raven Guard and won't fight back because the feeling of lightning claws dicing them up is too damn blissful. [[Troll|They also get off on the reactions they get from others]]- for example, the loyalist who Lucius tricks into slaughtering his own men.

When things come to more "social" followers, Slaanesh competes with Tzeentch, as followers of both are known for being a silver-tongued manipulative dicks with a huge hard-on for power. Here the difference lies in that Slaaneshi followers seek power for their own gain, usually through charismatic speeches and the like, while Tzeenchians often have more altruistic goals or are more interested in a process of gaining power than actually getting it, intentionally raising the challenge to impossible level just to feed their ambitions, for which they'd use the exchange of favors, blackmail, and other such forms of social politicking. The 'huge hard-on' part is also much more [[Heresy|literal]] in Slaanesh's case.

Apart from [[AIDS|the obvious]], Slaanesh and Nurgle rarely have any interaction. There was the matter of the [[Isha|qt Eldar waifu]] Slaanesh wanted to keep for [[/d/|some]] [[rape|after-party]] [[FATAL|entertainment]], but since Nurgle is a fa/tg/uy at heart he couldn't resist claiming the elf waifu for himself. But they're mostly over that... mostly. Otherwise, their domains are just too different that they don't overlap all that much. Those who are ambitious and feel they deserve better choose Slaanesh, while those who give up or accept their lot fall into Nurgle's open, sweaty arms. Conflict occurs, but love of the self and love of others aren't as mutually exclusive as the desire to destroy and the desire to create, or a demand for the spotlight against careful orchestration.

[[File:Slaaneshi Forces.JPG|thumb|right|500px|Slaaneshi forces in their realm.]]

Slaanesh units are:
* '''[[Daemonettes]]''', hideous crab-clawed hermaphrodites or seductive scythe-clawed elf-girls depending on which fluff you choose to believe, fa/tg/uys love Daemonettes and spend much time eagerly awaiting the drawfags to provide them with moar heresy. Some fluff seems to suggest that they're hot elf girls until they decide it's time to rip your face off, at which point they become something more akin to the BDSM glam-rock black-eyed lobster women seen in the current models. Moreover, they're supposedly attractive to the beholder (though these are often xenophobic assholes and thus only consider themselves beautiful) - this means that it is very likely that their appearance is entirely subject to the individual desires of whomever is perceiving them. This is represented by their hermaphroditic/androgynous appearance, supposedly rendering them attractive regardless of preference or sexuality. Their monstrous nature is a juxtaposition of slender sensuality and horrible, flesh-tearing daemonic claws. Like many Daemons, their appearance is supposed to be highly varied, which is never represented in the models unless you combine all the old and new, modify heavily, and use [[Raging Heroes|proxies]] randomly. Daemonettes are created by Slaanesh's waking thoughts, popping into existence as she contemplates trolling Khorne, destroying a civilization from within, or getting off.
* '''[[Seekers of Slaanesh]]''', Daemonettes mounted upon [[Steeds of Slaanesh]] which are the mix of an aardvark and a raptor [[dinosaur]]; fast and lots of attacks for not much points, prone to dying in a hail of arrow/bolter fire.
* '''[[Fiends of Slaanesh]]''', large creatures that look like a bizarre cross between an aardvark and a scorpion with rows of breasts, these are created when Slaanesh dreams (because apparently Chaos Gods sleep). They're basically if a Daemonette and a Seeker had a child.
* '''[[Seeker Chariots of Slaanesh]]''', hard hitting unit/squad-wipe models, this is whom you call for when you need that pesky [[tarpit]] removed. Right now. From other end of the board. Be cautious though, these things need protection like grimoire and preferrably invisibility,or at least [[Distraction Carnifex|target mitigation]] to live long enough to do their job since they are big targets with juicy 10 armor all round. Also never ever position yourself so that the enemy could have even remote chance of charging these things: even squad of retarded [[Tau|fire warriors]] or some [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Spearmen]] can take these chariots down in melee if they get the charge. These things live and die by the hammer of wrath attacks, use them accordingly. Also comes in the "Exalted Seeker Chariot" variant, which is literally just a larger Seeker Chariot crewed by higher ranked Daemonettes.
* '''[[Hellflayer Chariots of Slaanesh]]''', what happens when you combine enough Chariots to make Daemonettes literally [[/d/|dripping]] with excitement at being in battle.
* '''[[Warriors of Chaos]]''', not-Vikings/Mongols who live in the desolate north of Warhammer Fantasy and fight against each other when not raiding the rest of the world. The closer to the [[Warp Gates]] they are, the more like living Daemons while the furthest south are generally only concerned with survival and not offending gods.
* '''[[Beastmen]]''', the rapist omnivorous (in every sense of the word) animal-mutants that infest the world. Beastmen serve all of Chaos, some serve specific gods more than others but few serve one entirely. Live to literally and canonically shit on civilization and order. Ironically treated like shit by all of the rest of Chaos. Slaanesh, in keeping with the trend, allows his followers to fuck their women and drink their wine.
* '''[[Keepers Of Secrets]]''', Slaanesh's Greater Daemons, like a Daemonette on steroids, ecstasy and Viagra. Created intentionally from Slaanesh's own darkest thoughts and desires, rather than the Daemonettes/Seekers/Fiends which are created passively, each is radically different (even though there's only been three different models, one of which is long out of production). Geniuses capable of turning entire armies to their side, or destroying civilizations. The default leaders of almost any Slaaneshi army, unless lead by a...
* '''[[Daemon Prince]]''', a human (with [[Dechala|one Elf]] as the exception) so devout to Slaanesh that they managed to become a Daemon. In Fantasy this is usually, but not always, a Warriors of Chaos Champion who made the perilous journey of getting not to little or too much attention while in her service.

=== 40k ===
* '''[[Chaos Space Marines]]''', the traitor marines of the [[Emperor's Children|third legion]] worship Slaanesh exclusively, as do warbands such as the Angels of Ecstasy and the Flawless Host. They also make up a large chunk of the Black Legion, as the Children of Torment.
** '''[[Noise Marines]]''', the specialist traitors dedicated to Slaanesh, akin to Khorne's [[Berserkers]], Nurgle's [[Plague Marines]] or Tzeentch's [[Thousand Sons]]. Aural-focused traitors who specialise in using [[Sonic Weaponry]] because the cacophony is the only thing that can register on their jaded senses anymore. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berghain Can be found IRL also.]

=== Fantasy ===
* '''[[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Druchii]]''', the Warhamer Fantasy evil Elves who are the highest ranking worshipers of Slaanesh, who they call Shornaal, in the [[Cult Of Slaanesh|Cult Of Pleasure]]. In most of the games history (4 editions out of 8 total, the first two having virtually no story whatsoever), Dark Elves had their origin in their Queen [[Morathi]] being the high priestess of Slaanesh, who corrupted her [[Malekith|son]] and about half the Elf race. While most Dark Elves torture and kill in the name of [[Khaine]], Morathi lead a cult of Chaos Elves and regularly allied with other Slaaneshi factions (other than Beastmen, because Morathi kept [[Harpies|her own]] as pets and shits on all others like a good Chaos character should). In later editions, Chaos Elves were retconned away into worshipers of [[Atharti]], [[Hekarti]], and [[Ereth Khial]], three Elven Slaanesh-expy gods, in order to redo the Dark Elf faction as evil Elves who ally with other Elves in the interest of mutual survival instead of evil Elves who just want to watch the world burn while a slave who's skin has been torn off gives them oral. This choice split many fans, some asking why Elves should worship Slaanesh when they have Khaine instead of Khorne, others asking why they worship Khaine when Khorne is better.

==Potential semi-retcon of Slaanesh in 40k==
With the release of "Rise of the Ynnari: Wild Rider" we now have daemons of Slaanesh making an appearance during the [[War in Heaven]]? Now this could be just a case of timey wimey Warp shenanigans but it could also be an indication of something else! What if Slaanesh's "birth" was actually more akin to a rebirth of something far older; the original sin if you were.

It is known that even before the Fall agents of Slaanesh were already at large in the galaxy and actively seeking to bring it into being. If Slaanesh did indeed have a presence all the way back in the War in Heaven then perhaps it has always been there, seeking a way to return, as opposed to beginning to gestate within the Empyrean during the conflict itself.

Slaanesh isn't all about sex, [[Drug|drugs]] and more sex, but actually fits all of the seven deadly sins rather well: [[/d/|Lust]], [[RAGE|Wrath]], [[Blood Ravens|Greed]], [[Perturabo|Envy]], [[Giles|Gluttony]], [[Lazy Marines|Sloth]] and [[Cato Sicarius|Pride]] all fall under Slaanesh's domain; each of which play key roles in the other God's spheres of influence also. Of course these are taken to their extremes, as is Slaanesh's trade mark, but even the other Chaos Gods are extremes in their own way, and though they are all placed above the Dark Prince in terms of power they all may "fear" the influence that Slaanesh has the potential to hold over them and are very wary that the Dark Prince may eventually eclipse them all in power.

The War in Heaven is essentially the event(s) that created "Hell" in 40k as many races with a presence in the warp fought and died in the conflict, so it makes sense that there must have been an "original Satan"-like figure as well. Of course, this could be looking too much into this and talking out of our collective arse, but what with Slaanesh in [[Age of Sigmar]] no longer being counted amongst the Four, it opens up a lot of possibilities for when the Dark Prince does eventually return.

== Facts ==
[[File:Nope.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Alright, who's next for "Purifying"?]]
* [[Ynnead]] is secretly Slaanesh
*[[Sanguinius]] is jealous of Slaanesh because they are the only one more fabulous than hi-{{BLAM}}
* Slaanesh wants to fuck the Emperor, but every time they try, the Big E psychically bitch-slaps them, destroys all their sex toys and sex slaves and breaks their hands so they can't fap for a while.
* Slaanesh knows that you can't spell happiness without penis.
** Slaanesh is dyslexic.
***Slaanesh also knows that you can't spell dyslexic without sex
* The title of Slaanesh's greatest mortal champion is owned by Shädman''(ayyyyy)''
* Slaanesh is bitching over the fact how their only representation in the DoW series was the [[Emperor's Children]] paint scheme. And they aren't even Slaaneshi like, they're just a generic chaos army. Although, their did grant favor to Eliphas for smashing a ton of soulstones. (And their colours aren't even correct.)
**However, concerning stated above, the developers have added noise marines for Dawn of war 2: Retribution. This has made Slaanesh quite happy. However, he/she/it is still <s>pissed off of not getting enough representation</s> OFFENDED BY THIS SILENCE, considering Nurgle gets Plague Champion hero, the Plague Marine Tier 2 unit, and the Epic Great Unclean One daemon, Khorne then gets the Khornate Chaos Lord, Bloodletters and Bloodcrushers, while Tzeentch gets the Sorcerer hero, has the most effective upgrade for the basic CSM squad (Warpfire bolts make everything in front of them shit brix and was flat out broken in earlier versions of its introduction), and all of the Anti-armor upgrades, while they only get a single unit that frankly eclipsed by either Plague Marines or generic Havocs with an autocannon.
* Charlie Sheen is their first true Daemon Prince (though he was recently diagnosed with HIV which resulted from his sexcapades, so looks like he could swing towards [[Nurgle]]. But just like [[Fulgrim]] his body probably needs to be destroyed first before he can ascend). It was nearly Malcolm Mcdowell, on account of Mcdowell's filmography including two of Slaanesh's favorite films (see below) and Mcdowell's hedonistic younger years; before Charlie had even reached puberty, Mcdowell was already far into sex and drugs both in his films and real-life. But as he got older, Mcdowell turned away from hedonism and cleaned himself up. Other contenders include Gene Simmons and Tila Tequila.
* Slaanesh gets beaten up/off by all of the other Chaos Gods on a fairly regular basis, and gets off on it.
* If it exists, [[PROMOTIONS|Slaanesh faps/shlicks/shlaps to it]].
* Tzeentch likes to trick Slaanesh into fighting Khorne to get his daily dose of lulz. Slaanesh always loses these fights pretty badly; and each time, Slaanesh takes it pretty hard. [[C.S.Goto|And this pleases them.]]
* Slaanesh is secretly depressed that have no friends. Khorne is a dick, and Tzeentch is the biggest dick there is. Nurgle is nice, but Slaanesh can't get over the fact that he cucked them. ("Can't get over it" in both a [[PROMOTIONS|positive]] and [[RAGE|negative]] sense.)
** Also, Nurgle has ''all'' the STDs, which would make him Slaanesh's natural enemy out in the wild. Isha's immunity to all diseases is better than any protection, which is a pretty substantial reason why Slaanesh liked her.
* Slaanesh gets bullied by all the other Chaos Gods constantly because none of them like him/her/it. This does not upset the balance, though, because Slaanesh likes BDSM where they being bullied and tortured by the other Chaos Gods.
* Slaanesh is Tzeentch's second favorite victim for his hijinks, because it's oh so easy to string them along with offers of porn, whores, BDSM and/or drugs.
* Khorne [[Rip and Tear|regularly tears off Slaanesh's arms]] and beats them over the head with them (Again, this inadvertently makes Slaanesh orgasm).
* Slaanesh was doping when they killed the Eldar Gods, they couldn't really beat them all without using performance enhancing drugs. (at least that what Khaine, a god of war and destruction, keeps insisting when ever someone asks him why he got both figuratively and possibly literally raped by a god(ess) of sex drugs and rock'n'roll)
** Slaanesh is always on drugs (Except psychiatric medication, they kill sex drive down to the very biology)
* Slaanesh attempted to fight the Nightbringer in a desperate attempt to win back some street cred, they got their left boob cut off for their trouble. It hurt so bad/good that it retroactively cut off the left boobs of all of Slaanesh's greater daemons and that's why they all only have one boob (or six). Given the new backstory and their time of birth, this means that Slaanesh lost against a Necron Pokémon.
* Slaanesh is a great patron of the arts. Their favourite films include:
** Hellraiser: Slaanesh's number one film. In fact, they took a lot of inspiration on many of the movie's aspects... <strike>That is, of course, a lie. They actually ripped off Hellraiser.</strike> Hellraiser ripped them off. Slaanesh had a cameo appearance in the sequel dressed as a lozenge.
** A Serbian Film: Slaanesh's second favorite movie. They already started putting NEWBORN PORN into her/his daily schedule.
** Pink Flamingos: Slaanesh's third favourite movie, which is actually a film adaptation of Slaanesh's journal. Slaanesh especially enjoyed the depictions of their hobbies (including bestiality, scat fetishes and vore), that the movie quotes them directly (see Divine's quote above).
** A Clockwork Orange: One of Slaanesh's favorite movies; not so much the book it was adapted from as it was less about sex and more a commentary on the nature of morality. (Although Slaanesh faps/shlicks to commentaries on morality too.) They like to jerk-off at many of the movie's aspects, but more notably Malcolm Mcdowell's sexy face. They also find the death of one of the characters totally hilarious, due to the fact that said character was killed by a giant rocking ceramic phallus straight to the face. '''BLOWJOB OF DEATH !!! LULZ !!!''' Unbelievable and improbable? Well here's evidence to prove it: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbRSag-L-GQ Giant rocking ceramic phallus attack !!!].
** The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Mostly because of Tim Curry (who is actually Slaanesh).
** Legend: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3J91bPrW9A Also because of Tim Curry, who practically plays a daemon prince of Slaanesh].
** Caligula: The movie written by Gore Vidal for copious amounts of sex, incest and Malcolm Mcdowell as the title character. Slaanesh's favorite scenes are when Caligula engages in an incestuous threesome with his sister and his fiance, and the giant orgies on stage (don't watch the latter if you have a weak stomach - there's a real snake in one scene and [[FATAL|you don't want to know what the woman does with it]]).
** Eyes Wide Shut. Slaanesh has heard the film described as "Just Artsy Porn", but doesn't get the criticism. It's Art and it's Porn. What's not to love?
** Event Horizon: A documentary of how he/she/it is directly responsible for fucking up humanity's first venture into the Warp.
** High Rise: Some say it holds the essence of the one time Slaaneshi and Khaine got jiggy with it.
** Salo or 120 days of Sodom: Slaanesh liked it better when they thought it was real and not just special effects.
** The Stuff: A movie about the time some railroad workers found lakes of Slaanesh's jizz at a quarry and marketed it as dessert food due to its properties, leading to numerous shenanigans and giving Slaanesh much lulz that they never learned where it came from.
* Slaanesh enjoys the Song of Ice and Fire books due to the copious amounts of incest and midget sex and the TV adaption Game of Thrones because they added sex scenes and casting several porn stars on top of this.
* Slaanesh's favorite band is GWAR, because everything with them is sex, drugs, and rock and roll in excess, even covering their audience in jizz, blood, random chemicals, and mixtures of all three, and inciting massive blood orgies constantly.
* Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams is also suspected to be one of the early influences of Slaanesh in human music culture, the singer suspected to be one of his/her/its avatars.
* Slaanesh gets ALL the pussy, as well as all the dick, cloca, ovipositor, stamen, pistil, and pilus.
* Slaanesh tried to seduce all of the remaining C'tan at once. Slaanesh ended up getting the pleasure sensors in its brain lobotomized. S/he got off on this.
* Slaanesh found Captain Flashheart so magnificent in Blackadder that they created a daemon prince in his image. Woof woof!
* Despite psychic powers supposedly being Tzeentch's specialty, Slaanesh's tend to be the really [[cheese|cheesy]] ones. 3rd edition had a minor power called Siren, which forbids the caster from being shot at in the opponent's shooting phase (it's just as broken as it sounds). 4th edition has Lash of Submission, which the Chaos Marine tactics cover the usage of (in a nutshell, GW admitted they didn't realize how good it turned out to be and it was the most used on daemon princes even though the +1I from the required MoS wasn't very useful). And what about 6th edition? While Tzeentchian sorcerers focus on pwning the shit our of enemy with (mediocre) mind bullets and warp-beams, Slaaneshi ones pack a whole lot of cheesy buffs and debuffs, which makes them so much better. Similar deal in Fantasy, where Slaanesh, some of the time, offers a better selection of magic than Tzeentch.
*Slaanesh is the only entity in existence who listens to the My Dad Wrote A Porno podcast purely for erotic purposes. He/she/it cannot understand for the life of him/her/it why no one else finds cervix-grabbing sexy.
** Still, ]they fap/shlick/???-PROFIT at this.
* Considering that Slaanesh is about excess, there might be several other types of Marines besides Noise Marines we don't know about:
** Smell Marines, who use gasses to do whatever they wish through peoples noses, whether it be death, insanity, paralysis, suggestibility, 'seeing colors', and so on, always permanent brain damage. This is a way to get Nurgle followers to convert.
**Sight Marines, whose weapons create wondrously intricate bloom and color effects of equally detailed and aesthetically (only to a branch of masochists masochists can't stand) pleasing. This is a way to get Khorne followers to convert.
** Touch Marines, who know the nervous system better than a Bene Gesserit, able to bring the mightiest warriors down with the right jab in the right spot, consumed with uncontrollable orgasms.
**Taste Marines, think about the spiciest thing you've ever eaten, now imagine that a million times stronger, we are talking Exterminatus level of scovilles here, literally melt your god damn tongue off heat. It's like that only worse. They would use super pepper spray that can literally eat through armor.
*Also, a former Tzeentch follower gone Slaaneshi would be incredibly dangerous: Tzeentch followers understand indeterminism (from a very distorted, cynical perspective) and also see knowledge as power per circumstance to win where force, charisma and economics cannot. A devout Slaaneshi seeks to experience everything. Thus a former Tzeentchian, already well read on enough to convince themselves they experienced it, or well read enough to steal peoples experiences, who became a hedonist addict as well would be left with one desire: to be omnipotent and thus be able to go beyond the limits of mortal imaginings in pursuit of understanding and experience for the sake of understanding and experience.
*Slaanesh tried to get in Khorne's head by seeking to understand the appeal of skulls. Instead Slaanesh got bored and invented the idea of skullfucking. <br/> '''{{Blam|DAMN IT SLAANESH WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO MY SKULL THRONE THIS IS DISGUSTING!! IT'S EVERYWHERE!! IT'S OOZING OUT OF EVERY EYE SOCKET!!! I'M NEVER GOING TO BE ABLE TO SIT ON THAT AGAIN AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!}}'''
**Khorne secretly loves it when Slaanesh does this, because now he has even more of an excuse to go out and collect enough skulls to replace it.
*[[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Slaanesh Patrols will skull fuck your family.]]
* Slaanesh secretly wants Khorne. S/he's upset that the 'Special K' hates her/him/it.
**However, if Slaanesh ever did create a copy of him/her/their/itself, then the two would immediately try to murderfuck each other, in a kinky simulacrum of Highlander. This would apply to all of the main ruinous powers, <s>apart from</s> including Nurgle, <s>who would simply hug his</s> whose female double <s>and then get to work with said double on a particularly virulent strain of super aids/crotch rot.</s> would get jealous of Isha and conspire with Slaanesh to get rid of that home-wrecking skank.
*Slaanesh is the patron <s>god</s> <s>goddess</s> deity of bonobos (look them up).
*Slaanesh's ''only'' criticism of the Cats movie is that there are no visible genitals.
* Slaanesh #fuckedPalpatine.

== Gallery ==
{{heresy}}
{{promotions}}
{{/d/}}
<gallery>
Image:Slaaneshi.JPG|Slaanesh followers DO COCAINE!!!!!!!!
Image:Daemonette commisssar.JPG|That's a real [[commissar]], just look at the [[hat]].
Image:Daemonette02.JPG|DDaemonette
Image:Daemonette01.JPG|It's not furry, you can totally fap to it.

Image:Daemonette.JPG
Image:Slaaneshi2.JPG|Why it's good to be Slaanesh follower.
Image:Daemonxmas copy.jpg|Slaanesh can be festive as well.
Image:Lurvemudkipz.JPG|Evidence that it is possible that some [[pokémon]] are susceptible to Chaotic influence.

Image:Slaaneshi mudkips.JPG|Oh god. ;_;
Image:Slaanesh trainer.jpg|There is no excuse or explanation for this.
Image:Slaaneshijack copy.jpg|This image can be used to improve a bad thread.
Image:Irresistible.jpg|Simply Irresistible

Image:Dranon5.jpg|Mr Culexus' interpretation of Slaanesh. Notice the massive bulge in the crotch that's bigger than it's boobs.
Image:Not_too_abysmal_by_Mr_Culexus.jpg|Love can bloom in the galaxy of Transylvania
Image:1271157389405.jpg|What a Slaaneshi raptor would look like by non-GW canon.
Image:daemonette_minerva.png|Who else did you think furries worshiped?

Image:Slaanesh_LAWL.jpg|LAWL
Image:Trapmarine.jpg|Slaanesh Chaos Marines come with a little "extra"...
Image:Trapmarine_BW.jpg|... which may not be so "little".
Image:Daemonette_with_seeker_mount.jpg|She "rides" it... if you know what I mean... no seriously, zoom in if you don't believe me. Although for your sake you really should take my word for it.

Image:643214 - Daemonette Eldar Warhammer 40k howling banshee warhammer yuliapw.jpg|The more common and usual fate of Eldar.
Image:Slaanesh cosplay 1 by zk87-d2zo47q.jpg|Now 262.71% more real!
Image:Slaanesh Time.jpg|You might be mixing up love and lust.
Image:Slaanesh_miniature_closeup.jpg|Gimme some sugar

Image:Slaanesh+hr giger.jpg|H. R. Geiger is pleased
Image:Slaanesh by zk87-d2z4bpv.jpg|Lashes of Torment!
Image:Slaanesh-153102-SweetAngel.jpg|She Who Thirsts indeed
Image:Khorne-and-Slaanesh.jpg|Khorne is sooo tsundere...
Image:Slaanesh by genzoman-d2y8ylf.jpg|[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2qT7GylRxw And to think... I hesitated]

Image:Dark_Prince_of_Pleasure_Slaanesh_wfrp.jpg|From the old [[WFRP]] days
Image:MoeSlaanesh.png|How can anyone not want to serve something so utterly <s>adorable</s> heretical?
Image:1419021850273.jpg|Yes, that is a Santa outfit.
Image:Anons_fall_to_Chaos.png|Anon heralds the Age of Strife.
Image:Champion of Slaanesh RL.png| We have the makings of a daemon prince here!
Image:HereticalUseOfChainswords.gif| When you say "Go Fuck Yourself with a Chainsword," Slaanesh will take it literally.
Image:Cultist-chan24.jpg|Slaanesh has improved cultist chan
Image:Wildslaanesh.png|Slaanesh Demon corrupts children
Image:Slaanesh-sorcerer.jpeg|Slaanesh makes the Cenobites from Hellraiser look good.
</gallery>

Give yourself over to absolute pleasure
Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh
Erotic nightmares beyond any measure
And sensual daydreams to treasure forever
Can't you just see it. Whoa ho ho!
Don't dream it, be it...
Don't dream it, be it...

==See Also==
*[[Dechala]] - The oldest existing Chaos Champion special character of Slaanesh in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]].
*[[Azazel]] - The oldest existing [[Daemon Prince]] of Slaanesh in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]].
*[[The Masque]] - Slaanesh's former fav fab Daemonette stripper, and current PR rep.
*[[Sigvald]], Slaanesh's favorite not-Caligula/not-Joffrey.
*The [[Emperor's Children]] legion - The largest contingent of sick fucks on this side of the warp. And on that side of the warp.
*[[Fulgrim]] - Primarch of the largest contingent of sick fucks <strike>on this side (and that side) of the warp</strike> ever.
*[[Fabius Bile|Fabulous Bile]] - What you get by combining a self-obsessed homosexual and Dr. Frankenstein, only this one is played by geriatric [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_%28wrestler%29 Glenn Jacobs] instead of young Tim Curry.
*[[Lucius]] - Considered by some as the Sickest of Fucks amongst the living.
*[[Doomrider]] - He does COCAINE!
*[[Miriael Sabathiel]] - The <s>first</s> only Sister of Battle to <s>fall to</s> willingly embrace Chaos and champion of Slaanesh.
*[[Daemonette]] - Daemons of Slaanesh. Viewing said content is heretical, in 20 seconds or less after clicking the link, expect a squad of inquisitorial storm troopers to barge-in and blam you to hell.
*[[Reasonable Daemonette]] - Slaanesh's perversion knows no bounds. Hers does, and she respects yours.
*[[Loli D]] - The [[loli]] variant of the Slaaneshi Daemonette. Viewing said content is [[Extra Heresy|extra heretical]]. E-Commissars can and will [[Exterminatus|blam you from your monitor with the utmost prejudice]] if you click on this link.
*http://1d4chan.org/wiki/File:Slaanesh's_sacrifice.pdf
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-gHgcmFB6Q Rick and Morty's visit to the Realm of Slaanesh]
*[https://pastebin.com/5QZMB7nH Excessively Vanilla] - AKA the '''one''' time Slaanesh goes full-on vanilla, including actual marriage, handholding, and under the cover missionary sex for the sole purpose of procreation
{{Template:ChaosGods}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Age of Sigmar]][[Category:Hedonites of Slaanesh]]

Nurgle

2020-03-14T13:35:09Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* Gallery */

[[File:220px-Nurgle Symbol.png|center]]
{{awesome}}
{{heresy}}
{{Promotions}}
[[File:Nurgle.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Nurgle pictured making his famous entrée: Asshole explosion]]
<span style='color:green;font-size:100%'>'''NURGLE IS LOVE! NURGLE IS LIFE! ALL PRAISE THE PLAGUE FATHER WITH THE CORPSE OF DEATH!<br>- The Pact of Nurgle in a Nutshell'''</span>

{{Topquote|Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host and then a master?|Kahlil Gibran}}

{{Topquote|To me death is not a fearful thing. It's living that's cursed.|Jim Jones}}

{{Topquote|Behold the floral magnificence of Nurgle. Budding flowers of flesh growth, the tessellating landscapes of mould spore. There is no beauty to the unadorned. Nurgle is first and foremost an artist. Tzeentch, he is a mere mischief maker, and young Slaanesh no more than a libertine. Let us not even begin with the linear, narrow-minded aggression of Khorne.|Opsarus "the Crow", [[Plague Marine]] Captain, Champion of Nurgle}}

{{Topquote|If everything is shit, why worry about it?|Unknown Wehrmacht Soldier}}

{{Topquote|These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things--taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle. . . By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.| H.G Wells, War of the worlds}}

<span style='color:green;font-size:100%'>'''The total "wet weight" of humanity on [[Terra]] (ca. 020.M3 anyway) is 7.33×10<sup>11</sup> kg.

<span style='color:green;font-size:100%'>'''The total weight of bacteria, 9.9×10<sup>11</sup>.

<span style='color:green;font-size:100%'>'''Facts.'''</span>

{{BLAM|Facts?...HERESY}} {{BLAM}}

==Introduction==

WARNING HE'S FUCKING GROSS!!!

The unholy combination of your loving grandfather and Santa, if all he gave you were plagues, and every day was Christmas.

Also known as Papa or Grandpa Nurgle, he is the god of misunderstood sick fucks ([[Slaanesh|no, not ''those'']], we mean ''literally'' sick) and all diseases. Nurgle is primarily the god of despair, stagnation, death, decay, and (in a way)Entropy signifying the end of things in the material realm (though this is technically a position he shares with [[Tzeentch]], something that '''both of them''' Question and hate). Nurgle can be considered the god of everything, because no matter how permanent anything may seem, it will always eventually wither and decay in the end. While death is inevitable, sapient creatures will also fight against it with all available power, even to the point where they'd bargain with the Gods of the Warp to flip death the [[Lord of Change|bird]]. While some may turn to Tzeentch (or [[Nagash]]), only the children of Grandfather Nurgle transcend the feeble divisions between life and death, achieving true immortality (or at least unnatural resilience and eventual rebirth as [[Plaguebearer]]s).

We get an actual description of his appearance in the Age of Sigmar novel, Hallowed Knights Plague Garden: "Through the ragged shroud of smoke, Gardus saw what lay below the Inevitable Citadel, at the heart of Nurgle’s garden. Almost immediately, he closed his eyes and turned away, unable to bear it. It was impossible to describe. Impossible to comprehend. To his eyes, it was a wallowing swamp of black stars and dying worlds, of rotting galaxies alive with immense, writhing shapes as large as nebulas. Cosmic maggots, gnawing at the roots of infinity. Galactic plagues, eating away at the very flesh of existence, reducing all that was to leprous ruin in their unending hunger. It was a dark mirror of Azyr, corrupted, reduced, strangled. All glory vanished, all hope quashed. A thunder of screams echoed upwards, driving him back. A million million voices, raised up in anguish and despair. Forever crying out for that which would never come. Down below, something began to crawl out of the black heart of that cancerous infinity. It was no shape, and all shapes. Fat and thin, a plume of smoke, a puddle of oil, spreading ever upwards. There were eyes in the smoke, as round as cold, dead suns, and teeth that stretched in a grin as wide as the horizon. Fingers like comets clutched at the void, as the Lord of All Things stirred from his manse, and began the long, arduous climb to his garden. Moons crumbled beneath that impossible bulk, and stars were snuffed out."

Nurgle is also the god of other stoic emotions, such as: empathy, kinship, happiness, struggle, love, tradition, inevitability, mercy and memory. While Tzeentch seeks to twist fate and change reality, Nurgle teaches to accept entropy and rot and persevere despite it, with solace and happiness. His followers will vigorously spread the joyous teachings of Papa Nurgle and if those living fleshbags won't listen, they'll be shown all the pleasant ways for them to experience the unending cycle of death and rebirth.

In the [[1984]]-esque cold grimdarkness of outer space, where life sucks and everyone's a dick, Nurgle cares. And he loves you. He brings you family, love and the time to embrace that love fully and become one with it. He accepts you for who you are, as long as you stay that way. Also don't wash, don't shave, don't change your underwear. You're great the way you are. He knows that you have been abandoned by your past lovers, friends and family. He knows that you need the feeling of belonging, security and stability in your life. He will embrace you if you trust him to bring you an eternal, painless existence. Just ignore the pus and the smell coming from the forming folds inside and outside your body.

Nurgle's chosen champions are the Warriors of Chaos/Plague Marines, who have willingly accepted his myriad diseases and let him turn them into shambling, bloated zombie-like carrions that no longer feel any pain. Though it is not well known, he does have [[Sister of Nurgle|a few Sisters of Battle who worship him]]. The nature of Nurgle is that anyone suffering from one of his plagues is counted as one of his worshipers, and he'll grant Chaos blessings freely to them.

In 40k, he saved the Eldar goddess [[Isha]] from [[Slaanesh]], to become his Poxfulcrum (a guinea pig for Nurgle's concoctions, who can't be killed by them) and wife. Slaanesh is still upset and doesn't really like Nurgle for that. [[Cake|Nowadays, Nurgle and Isha live as a happy couple in Nurgle's Garden somewhere in the Warp. Nurgle likes to cook, and Isha is always eager to taste his stewings]].

In Fantasy, Nurgle kept the human goddess [[Shallya]] captive as his Poxfulcrum, until she was rescued by Dante Alighieri ([[Kaldor Draigo]]), and two Elves, with the second (a female) taking Shallya's place. In Age of Sigmar he becomes fixated on [[Everqueen|Alarielle]] and her [[Dryad]] daughters.

Generally speaking he's the third most powerful Chaos God after [[Khorne]] and [[Tzeentch]], respectively. All the chaos gods have their power wax and wane, but Nurgle's strength is the most subject to change. His power waxes during great plagues and times of great despair, decay, stagnation and when individuals let go of their ambitions. He becomes less influential during periods of great hope, change, evolution and when cures for his plagues are found, as well when individuals give in to their ambitions. During an especially big plague and/or period of stagnation (even more so than is usual for Warhammer any way, excluding GW's own stagnation of the story-line (as well as their business), which would in theory make him the strongest god, but as soon as this is acknowledged, things would no longer be stagnant, just as Tzeentch had planned), decay and despair, he can temporarily become the mightiest chaos god and his realm will encroach upon the realms of the other Chaos Gods and the neutral (Undivided, Law or unaligned) parts of the Warp. But as all power in the Warp is in constant change due to the life in the material realm being what it is, events that fuel his burst of power will eventually end and he will return to the position of being in the third place.

Ironically, he's easily one of the most successful of the Chaos Gods in Fantasy, having had the champion sworn to him specifically, rather than Chaos Undivided, get closest to claiming the Throne of Chaos, and having contributed the most to the End Times.

Nurgle is hero of all fa/tg/uys; ripe, fat and smelly! Other than being bloated, living corpses filled with wriggling vermin, Nurgle followers have other iconic traits: singular or triple eyes arranged in a triangle, long tongues or insectoid appearances, singular horns, and ringing bells. They usually paint their armor in snotty greens, dookie browns, or biley yellow. Most often greens, though. As can be expected, of all the Chaos Gods, Nurgle is the most likely to corrupt [[Orcs & Goblins]]/[[Orks]]. As if those sons of bitches couldn't get any tougher...

==Papa Nurgle's Forces==
[[File:Nurgle Old.jpg|thumb|right|400px|The first depiction of Nurgle in Warhammer art, back when an obvious phallic symbol as a sigil was nothing to be sneezed at.]]

* '''[[Great Unclean Ones]]''' - Greater Daemons with great sense of humor and a jolly split belly ready to jiggle with laughter. These merry guffaws make their entrails dangle from their open festering wounds, which Nurglings and Beasts love to jump up and down on and play with. You can smell the tangy perfume of ruptured boils, and it's said Nurgle himself is kind enough to coat their swords in the contagion of his own throne! What a swell chap; never too high and mighty to help his followers!
* '''[[Beast of Nurgle|Beasts of Nurgle]]''' - These are ''the'' puppydogs you asked Santa for! Complete and equipped with wagging tails, a long tongue to lick you in the face, the scampering excitement of youth, a slug-like texture and paralytic toxins!! If they get a little too excited they might piddle corrosive acid! Become a stalwart Nurgle follower and get one today!
* '''[[Rot Fly]]''' - Beasts of Nurgle who have become bitter and have transformed into a giant insect. Typically ridden by Plaguebearers into battle.
* '''[[Plaguebearers]]''' - Reincarnated souls of Nurgle's followers or the victims that fell to Nurgle's Rot. Nurgle is so generous that the gift of Daemonhood isn't just for Daemon Princes! They look like the bloated corpses of the drowned, but instead of water, they swell with pus and black bile. They are typically surrounded with swarms of buzzing flies, who make the plaguebearers much more complicated targets of shooting attacks. Really love to share their gifts. Their arms are made for hugging!
* '''[[Nurgling]]s''' - look like a tiny child's toy versions of Nurgle himself. They are CYOOOT and every Nurgle trooper wants the "shlorp, pitter, drip" of a pet Nurgling of their own, which is great because Nurglings can grow inside the skin of any Nurgle worshiper: the more plagued you are, the more likely you are to be "pregnant" with a few or more of these cute buggers at any given time.
* '''[[Poxwalkers]]''' - Mortals infected by Walking Pox and perhaps representing the transitional stage before one becomes a Plaguebearer after succumbing to Papa Nurgle's blessings. They are basically demon-powered zombies, shambling forward slowly and carrying only improvised melee weapons.
* '''[[Plague Marines]]''' - mostly consist of members of the [[Death Guard|Fourteenth Legion]], although a substantial number of the [[Black Legion|Sixteenth Legion]] are now also "blessed" with Papa Nurgle's gifts. As Astartes who are immune to pain and minor injuries, these guys are particularly difficult to kill.
* '''Plaguetouched Warbands''' - [[Warriors of Chaos]] who worship Nurgle, 'nuff said.
*'''[[Nurgle Rotbringers]]''' - His mortal servants in Age of Sigmar.
** Putrid Blightkings - Plaguetouched who are blessed with a living rot by Nurgle via his Daemonflies. Many have lost their internal organs and either constantly give birth to Nurglings or use it as a fungus-infested storage space (much like refrigerators in student corridors) or a place for hanging bells.
** Pusgoyle Blightlords - Elite Putrid Blightkings who have been given the right to ride a Rot Fly into battle.
** Harbingers of Decay - more corpses than men who ride from settlement to settlement spreading Nurgle's plagues.
** Rotbringers - the Wizards of Nurgle.
** Maggoth Lords - Blightkings who are particularly favored by Nurgle and are granted giant eyeless ogre-like Daemons with gaping maws called Pox Maggoths to ride.
** Feculent Gnarlmaw - Daemon-trees from the Garden of Nurgle that pop up in the wake of Nurglite incursions.

==Anecdotes about Nurgle==
[[Image:Nurgle_hug.JPG|thumb|Grandfather Nurgle loves all of his Children.]]
*About a year ago, I was out having a few drinks with the bois, when in walks Nurgle. He bought drinks for everyone in the bar. When we were all too hammered to drive home, he loaded us all up in his old Mazda 96 and bused us around town until we all made it back home. And when that cop pulled us over and tried to make trouble, Nurgle boiled his eyes out of his anus. Nurgle is a great guy.

*Me and Nurgle were going to go see this movie, I can't remember the name, and we were passing through the bad part of this Khornate neighborhood. Some fucking bloodletters ran out in front of the car and started denting up the damned thing. Nurgle just sits there, waiting for them to get out of the way, with that big goofy smile on his face. It wasn't until one of them busted my window and tried to drag me out of the car that Nurgle absolutely flips out. Before I know it, the whole road is ground zero for like an army of little black things. I couldn't figure out what they were until the bloodletters start screeching, running around in circles and clawing at their nuts, as their genitals just start exploding, one by one. Nurgle drives off, just wearing a smile. Fucker gave them all a case of super crabs. We laughed all the way to the show. I love Nurgle. He is a pretty fun guy to be around, just like Khârn.

*When I visited the Nurglette's family and met Papa Nurgle, he greeted me at the doorstep, football in hand, wearing an old fuzzy sweater and funny orange slacks, with a big goofy grin that said, "I like you already."

*Y'know, its a good thing in that grimdark universe, with [[Eldar|pointy aliens]] blowing off your limbs, some [[Necron|undead robots]] trying to de-atomize you, the Imperium with its Throne Vegetable for an emperor and the Inquisition trying to [[Exterminatus]] the shit out of everybody, you get to have the most loving family circle ever. Sure, you start to smell a little funny, get a sore here and there, a rash in your ass, but hell, you never ever feel pain or get upset since you no longer fear death, you get to have an immortal, eternal father that spreads joy and gifts all around, with plenty to spare, and a nurglette wife that is most loving and caring, if you can stand her burps and farts. And while you will be the most hideous thing in the universe, what use is appearance and health if everybody else is willing to take it away from you?

*When i was about 7 years old, my mother got diagnosed with lung cancer. After a month or two, her condition became worse and she started to have these random coughing fits and shortly thereafter, she started to cough blood. My father was not allowed to take a loan to try to find a trustworthy and professional (and thus expensive) doctor to set up a recovery program. So my mother decided to just live on pain pills and do as much as possible for our family before her body gave up. Then one day, completely out of nowhere, my mother collapses on the stairs of our home and does not wake up even as we put wet blankets on her face. My father takes the car and immediately drives us to the hospital. The physicians tell us that her body is dying. She is in great pain and there is nothing we can do. As we are standing there, next to her bunk, exhausted from unrest and tears, i see Nurgle standing next to me. Time freezes and the room suddenly fills with a sweet scent, like those white flowers of blooming apple trees. Nurgle has this goofy smile on his face. He reaches down towards my mother and just as i see his finger make contact with her shoulder, she gasps and her face lights up as if she instantly got 20 years younger. She looks so beautiful and innocent, laying there. Nurgle tells me that he is sorry, but for my mother to stop feeling pain, he needs to take her with him. Her goodness, beauty and love will live for ever. As i see my mother's skin darken and fall off, to reveal corrupted and worm-infested flesh, sliding off in heaps to eventually reveal the bones turning into milky paste, i hear her last words: "Thank you...". Nurgle saved my mother and for that, i am eternally thankful. Nurgle is love, Nurgle is life.

==Relationship with other Gods==

* [[Tyranid]] [[Hive Mind]] : You might think that the Hive Mind hates Nurgle, as he causes biomass to go bad and be unrecyclable, but really the Hive does not care. Meat just becomes fungi and bacteria which are also in turn subsumed into the swarm. In turn Nurgle though dislikes the Tyranids as they not only have a high disease resistance and quickly become immune to any disease he throws at them, they also end the cycle of life and death by consuming everything and leaving nothing behind to rot anew.

* [[Tzeentch]]: Nurgle and Tzeentch are archenemies, though their relationship is still a great deal friendlier than Khorne and Slaanesh. Nurgle thinks that Tzeentch should accept people for who they are, consider the feelings of the people that he steps on in his many schemes and plots and be more loving to his followers and daemons - y'know, treat them like a family, instead of faceless pawns. Tzeentch's opinion was pretty difficult to understand, due to frequent tourettes-like outbursts of "[[JUST AS PLANNED]]". Half of our crew report that he thinks that Nurgle should stop dwelling on the past, get used to collateral damage and stop being such a wuss, while the other half think the complete opposite. Empirical evidence show that they are still far more likely to cooperate than Khorne and Slaanesh would be, if only for a little while. After all, one can flow into the other: grief and despair can be fertile ground for hope, and crushing someone's dreams can drive them into depression.

* [[Khorne]]: Nurgle isn't very comfortable with Khorne's "Kill 'em all, fuck sorting them out"-policy, though he likes the fact that Khorne refuses to allow his mortal followers and daemons to attack the innocent and helpless (except in most of Khorne's fluff, when the writers forget this, but hey, this is clearly Imperial propaganda to make Khornites look bad), even if the reason for it is... questionable. Nurgle thinks that Khorne should calm down, stop fighting anything that looks like it would present anything resembling a challenge and actively protect those who can't fight for themselves, rather than punishing those followers who can't live up to his expectations. When asked what he thinks of Nurgle, Khorne responded with a long stream of curses, oaths and obscenities, strung together while foaming at the mouth. Empirical evidence shows that they did, however, help to save Khaela Mensha [[Khaine]] from being killed, raped and eaten by Slaanesh, though Khaine unfortunately ended up being broken in pieces in the process.

* [[Slaanesh]]: Nurgle isn't big on Slaanesh's omniphilia and sadomasochism. Nurgle likes Slaanesh the least of all Chaos gods; the biggest reason to this has its root during Slaanesh's inception, when Nurgle watched in horror as the newborn hermaphrodite killed and raped nearly all the Eldar Gods and Goddesses. Nurgle saved [[Isha]] from the perverted freak and cheered Khorne on as he fought to save Khaela Mensha Khaine, while helping Cegorach to hide in the [[Webway]]. Our interview with Slaanesh on the subject of Nurgle took the longest time of all. The details of the interview shall not be revealed in public documents as these, but simply put, Slaanesh sees Nurgle as an ugly, fat, boring and "unsexy" amoeba. Slaanesh is in addition cranky that all STDs are accredited to Nurgle and not her/him/it.

* [[Nightbringer]]: Nurgle isn't very happy about how coldly and mercilessly the C'tan butchers all living things and then devours their souls. Nightbringer was surprisingly calm during our talk and even offered us a cup of tea. We sat down and listened to him talk for hours about how he can't fight his own nature, that he is rather upset with Nurgle often stealing his Grim Reaper schtick, as well as that Nurgle is a no-good two-bit youngster. These two apparently represent the polar opposites of how death could come for you.

* [[The Deceiver]]: Nurgle thinks that the Deceiver is like Tzeentch without all the magic, while having the dickish aspects of personality multiplied tenfold. When asked about his opinion, the Deceiver gave us a set of riddles, caused one third of our interview crew to walk away, convinced another third to attack us, and made the rest of us hallucinate as if on acid.

* The [[Void Dragon]]/[[Omnissiah|Machine God]]: Nurgle isn't very fond of the fact that the Void Dragon eats the souls of those who have metal parts in their bodies and is quite unnerved of what he'll do when he wakes up. The Void Dragon was quite impossible to reach for an interview, since the Adeptus Mechanicus simply laughed in our faces when we asked for entry to the Noctis Labyrinthus.

* [[C'tan|The Outsider]]: Nurgle isn't sure what to think of the Outsider, but then again no one is, because he doesn't want to come out of that big sphere of his. We knocked, left gifts outside and even detonated a warp drive a couple of kilometers away, but he wouldn't come out for an interview.

* [[Emperor|The Emperor]]: When asked about the Emperor, Nurgle's typical goofy grin widened when he said: "I don't like referring to that old friend as The Enigma, but i sure love to irritate him in all kinds of ways. He is a nice chap, that one, but he really has no sense of humor.". Nurgle then proceeded to make most of our team fall asleep by nostalgically telling us of their poker nights and how happy he was when he invented the infamous nose-itch that has been irritating the Emperor for some thousands of years now. As for the Emperor's opinion, we will have to wait for Alfabusa's next Q&A video.

* [[Isha]]: Nurgle turned very serious when asked about his wife, which unnerved those awake and woke up those still asleep from his tales about poker nights with the Emperor. Nurgle gave us the impression of being overly protective, when he adamantly forbid us to get even close to the garden where Isha resides. He told us about how he rescued her from Slaanesh ten thousand years ago and how he cooks for her. His love is serious and very strong. In the end, Nurgle got so excited from talking about how he shows his affection towards Isha, that he showed some of his favorite food recipes to us, which accidentally made the majority of our reporters to hemorrhage or internally combust. For those unfamiliar with the Eldar pantheon, Isha is the goddess of life, fertility and healing, which makes her immune to Nurgle's cooking and infamously poor hygiene. This arrangement is begging for a romantic sitcom. In Warhammer Fantasy universe, she is known as [[Shallya]] and/or Kalara.

* [[Khaine|Khaela Mensha Khaine]]: Nurgle is still upset that he and Khorne couldn't save Khaine from breaking during the fight with Slaanesh. Nurgle tries to be nice to the Avatars of Khaine that pop up every now and then, even if they don't often return the favor, since being the Eldar god of War and Murder precludes silly things like friendship and interviews.

* [[Cegorach]]: While Nurgle thinks that the Laughing God was more than a little selfish to hide behind Khaine and then Khorne, he is rather fond of the galaxy's greatest comedian and plays poker with him on a regular basis. When asked what Cegorach thinks of Nurgle, our interview crew died laughing, so we had to recruit a completely new one. Recording this joke would need the help of a typically humorless mechanicum tech adept, but recruiting one for this task is simply impossible. The joke would simply have to rest for now.

* [[Malal]]: Nurgle is concerned for Malal's self-destructing tendencies and self-inflicted solitary confinement. To demonstrate, he took some pastries and cooked a can of tea and took our crew out on a stroll to visit Malal. We knocked and the door opened just little enough for some anti-particles to escape the room beyond. Next moment, the door was slammed in our face with a force that sent everyone except Nurgle flying. Having the patience on the level not rivaled by anyone else, Nurgle simply put the tray down outside the door. On our way back, Nurgle told us that every next time he visits Malal, he finds the tray empty of its contents. That's nice.

* [[Great Horned Rat]]: A combination of a putrid, corrupted beast and Tzeentch, who squats in Nurgle's Garden. ''Nobody'' likes The Horned Rat and thus no interview was bothered to be made. After Slaanesh was kidnapped by Elves in Age of Skubmar, Nurgle joined the other Chaos Gods in voting The Horned Rat into the Great Game as Slaanesh's replacement. That being said, Great Horned Rat has been compared to an unwanted bastard child, and the analogy is well deserved.

*[[Gork]] and [[Mork]]: Whilst attempting to interview Nurgle about the Greenskin Gods, the one we assumed to be Gork smashed through the wall and crushed the coffee table, whereupon Mork burst through and attempted to disembowel him with a table leg. Our team was unable to describe what occurred next so we shall put it down to Warp trickery, but the next thing they knew Nurgle was holding them both at arms length while insisting that they make up. Mork begrudgingly held out a hand which Gork took, and as soon as they were put down, Gork heaved his brother over his shoulder and through the other wall. Sighing, Nurgle told us that they were good boys at heart, but that most of the time he had to repair the house after they have left. We managed to track down the two Gods while they were calmer and asked them for their opinions. "He's a good guy beneath all rotten flesh, and unlike a certain feathery c**t he doesn't cheat at cards" we assumed that this was Mork. "'at's roit." our suspicions were confirmed. "He doesn't try to interfere with our domains and isn't a dick to his servants" continued Mork. "'at's roit." Gork supplied. "Unlike Khorne and aforementioned feathery c**t. He also doesn't mind being stuck with driving duties come Saturday." Mork said. "'at's roit." Gork said, nodding sagely. "Shut up Gork. You sound like you're f**king brain-dead!" "'at's roit!" Finished a very happy Gork.

* [[Archaon]]: Nurgle's opinion of Archaon is the same as of the other Chaos Gods. He can test Archaon whenever he wants and Archaon always passes. Archaon can be counted on as being a useful tool that can destroy entire universes, but his hatred of the Chaos Gods ensures none of them will ever have any more control over him than anyone else. This resulted in Nurgle putting everything he has under Archaon's command.

*[[Ynnead]]: Nurgle isn't really big on Ynnead stealing his "God of death" shtick. More info soon.

== Side Effects ==
Side effects of worshiping Papa Nurgle include (and are not limited to):
mild discomfort of the neck, aches, pains, Boils, scabs, internal bleeding, external bleeding, bleeding from the gums, bleeding from eyes and ears, pissing blood, sweating, dehydration, carbuncles, rash, pus-filled sores, sore-filled pus, flatulent boils, nausea, vomiting, bloody vomit, black vomit, black & bloody vomit, Down's syndrome, Up Syndrome, Left-Right-'N-Center Syndrome, sneezing, runny nose, dry nose, coughing, dry cough, wet cough, not-so-dry-but-still-raspy cough, fever, hay fever, meat sweats, athlete's foot, athlete's arm, swimmer's ear, tennis elbow, farmer's tongue, ploughman's bottom, milkmaid's nipples, browning of the nipples, tender nipples, hard nipples, kitten nipples, shitting dick nipples, postman's anus, vertigo, drowsiness, suicidal thoughts, sleepiness, insomnia, mad cow disease, mad snail disease, mad postal worker disease, loose bowels, constipation, explosive diarrhea, implosive diarrhea, impulsive diarrhea, jiggly handles, nasal leakage, anal leakage, genital leakage, general leakage, [[Brundlepenis]], black death, pink death, black eye, pink eye, genetic disorders, heart attack, lung cancer, loss of skin, blood clots, spilling guts, frothing mouth, rabies, puss excrement, moderate gas, medium gas, severe gas, holy-shit-who-died gas, mortality, sudden mortality, baby mortality, super-mortality, immortality, almost-but-not-quite mortality, nurglopromorphism, nurgleaproposism, nurgleabilia, smallpox, super small pox, large pox, medium pox, medium-rare pox, chicken pox, eagle pox, turducken pox, fox-in-socks-eating pox, the sudden urge to eat ham, baldness, blood clotting, AIDS, super-AIDS, STD's, STI's, zombification, artificial insemination, artificial exsemination, uncontrollable exsemination, uncontrollable exsanguination, uncontrollable lactation, uncontrollable Croatian, crabs, super-crabs, giant enemy crabs, spycrabs, spylobsters (AKA uncontrollable crustacean), typhus, malaria, Tom please come home your mother is scared and the cat is missing, yellow fever, red fever, green fever, fuchsia fever, rainbow fever, tuberculosis, dick rot, sniffles, jungle dick rot, dick sniffles, jungle dick sniffles, rotten dick jungles, raging murder boner, salmonella, sam-o-nella, spamonella, random and painful erections, random and painful injections, the condition known as hotdog fingers, Ebola, rectal ventriloquism, everything tasting of goats, reduced sex drive, spontaneous breakouts of "HEUHEUHEU", moderate discomfort of the neck, and Covfefe. In most cases side effects were generally in the extreme and permanent.

Nurgle is not for women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. If you experience an erection lasting longer than four hours then please <s>give Slaanesh your phone number</s> seek immediate medical attention. Do not worship Nurgle while driving or operating heavy machinery. Consult your physician before worshiping Nurgle. Batteries not included, no purchase necessary; void where prohibited, see store for details.

==Disclaimer==
If you join Nurgle, we can't promise that you'll become the most attractive person in the world, or that you will be accepted in many places, but Nurgle has a place for each and every one of us in his great big ol' diseased heart.

== Fun Nurgle Facts ==
* Nurgle, despite being the third most powerful Chaos God, has possibly the smallest fanbase in Warhammer 40k. Apparently having [[Khorne|RAGE]] fits, being allowed to scream [[Tzeentch|JUST AS PLANNED!]] and receiving [[Slaanesh|PROMOTIONS]] is better than friendship and love, or anything else that Papa Nurgle offers. In contrast, he has the single largest fanbase in Warhammer Fantasy, partially due to how easy his models are to modify with greenstuff and how overpowered his army has always been.
* Despite being the God of despair and decay, he's ironically a lot friendlier than the [[Tzeentch|God of change and hope]].
* As discussed in a /tg/ thread, the "Garden of Nurgle" may be a metaphor for Isha and Nurgle being the same entity. This works great with the idea of Grandpa Nurgle in a dress, pretending to be a space elf princess and fits quite nicely with the "king of the [[Neckbeards]]"-theme some fa/tg/uys had developed.
**Nurgle has a strong association with fungi, bacteria and virus, things which cause or profit from sickness and death. Funny thing about all three is that they also are were humanity's strongest medicines come from. Penicillin comes ''penicillium mold'' for example and it is hardly a one off. Could this be Isha giving us a hand? "Whispering" the cures of his poxes to us?
* According to [[Storm of Magic]], when Nurgle gets upset or depressed, he wanders off into the many bogs of his region of the Realm of Chaos to hunt [[Plague Toads]], squashing them to cheer himself up. They make a fun squishing sound (we're actually not joking here, this is legitimately canon).
* Nurgle's triple-circle symbol looks like a stylized fly (the animal most commonly considered holy to Nurgle), a stylized version of the bio-hazard symbol and also represents the cycle of death, decay and rebirth, over which Nurgle has dominion.
* Nurgle is the only Chaos God whose Daemons look just about like him. Plaguebearers don't, but that's because they're the possessed souls of fallen enemies.
* According to the Tome of Decay for [[Black Crusade]], Nurgle sees his role in the cosmos as a sort of galactic recycler. Entropy rises when life grows so old that Order stagnates and decays, meaning it's Chaos's job to consume and destroy everything, leaving rot in abundance for new, verdant life to be born from; clean and pure, until the cycle repeats again. Imagine forest fires that occur naturally to set a clean slate to the flora, before it almost chokes itself to death by overgrowing. Nurgle's job, as he sees it, is to euthanize the galaxy as quickly and as painlessly as possible, and as far as he's concerned, the galaxy is well over due the time where it should have been cleansed to start a new life cycle.
** Ironically, this is a valid argument for Nurgle and Tzeentch to work together in harmony for a common goal. Nurgle clears out the trash and gives Tzeentch the room to begin again. The galaxy becomes a blank slate for Tzeentch to experiment and coax new life to take shape and rise in the next cycle. Contradictingly, this is also an argument for Nurgle and Tzeentch to fight with each other, as the God of Change is not doing his job properly. Instead he is, ironically again, perpetuating the status quo for whatever reason, rather than letting Nurgle do his thing. It could also be that Tzeentch is still helping him, since his plans might appear to maintain the status quo, while really planing seeds for the final collapse. Even in real life scenarios, in many cases of stagnation, the measures that are applied to hold a society or system afloat, eventually become too many until everything eventually collapses all over itself.
*** He apparently succeeds at this goal in [[The End Times]] of [[Warhammer Fantasy]]. Perhaps fitting, along with the various analyses on this page. Tzeentch seemed mostly cool with the fact, while Slaanesh wasn't.
* Nurgle's main daemon unit, the Plaguebearers, are the second most fucking impossible to kill enemies in Warhammer Fantasy, surpassed only by Plaguemarines in 40k and Great Unclean Ones in Fantasy. Worth noting that the Plague Marines are just Plaguebearers with cool armor and guns, while Great Unclean Ones are miniature versions of Nurgle himself. Each one can soak up 13.5 bolter shots on average, before dropping dead (do not ever 100% trust mathhammer though), which some find unreasonable, considering that they cost one point less than regular space marines, meaning that a more expensive model will have little hope in killing it by the time it usually takes to complete a full game. You don't want to know how many lasgun shots is needed to be fired at one to kill it (36). Then you get into Fantasy, where you need fire, and as much of it as possible... and cannons. Lots and lots of cannons.
* Nurgle's the reason you're itching right now.
* Despite what you may think, Nurgle can fail. And he knows it. Case in point: [[Luke]].
*Mentioning the name of Pasteur in front of Nurgle makes him go into such a rage even Khorne gets appalled, he still hasn't managed to catch the old doc's soul, ''hon hon hon''. For that matter, count Jensen, Fleming, and Yersin among Papa Nurgle's blacklist too.
* Slaanesh pissed off Nurgle by constantly wanting to get Isha back. Nurgle in retaliation created STDs.
* According to the 8th Edition Chaos Codex, Nurgle once attempted to create a flesh-eating disease but [[Fail|accidentally created a disinfectant]]. Not even the bravest of Great Unclean Ones dare bring up the subject again. Again, this is legitimately canon. Even make sense if you think about it, Penicillin does come from a mold.
* Nurgle does not extend his "free hugs" policy to Tzeentch. Not out of hate, but because they will cancel each other out of existence.
* Nurgle once tried his hand at [[World of Warcraft]]. The result was the Corrupted Blood incident.
* Nurgle's daemons, particularly the Great Unclean Ones, are among the most characterful daemons in all Warhammer lore and literature, though this largely because they are among the only daemons actually allowed to have personalities.
* Junko Enoshima claims to be a loyal follower of Nurgle, as one of his aspects is despair. While he does appreciate her [[Slaanesh|Slaaneshi-tier]] admiration for him, he does NOT appreciate a) her hatred for tradition, which she considers boring, b) her callous attitude towards her victims and c) her usage of [[Tzeentch|Tzeentchian techniques]] in order to spread his will.

==Famous Servants==
*Bubonicus - Nurgle's version of Khorne's [[Doombreed]], Slaanesh's [[N'kari]], and Tzeentch's [[M'kachan]]. Like Slaanesh's second in command, Bubonicus has no chance of being a real life historical figure unlike M'Kachan and Doombreed since he was born a good deal after humanity became a space faring species and was not in fact, born on Terra, but instead hailed from the same planet as N'kari. He is something of an oddity among the four Great Daemon Princes, since he's not roughly as old as Nurgle, while the other three are about as old as their respective gods. He has a huge line of dancers on one planet that goes across said planet's equator and they keep on dancing until they catch Uber-Syphillis and become Plaguebearers, at which point they leave to fight for Nurgle while someone else takes their place. The absolute fucking life of the [[Krieg|party]]. His primary rival among the Daemon princes is not M'Kachan as one would expect, but N'Kari, as they were enemies in their mortal life.
*[[Scabeiathrax]] - Nurgle's version of Khorne's An'ggrath, Slaanesh's Zarakynel and Tzeentch's Aetaos'Rau'Keres (say that five times fast). Famous for having T9 and 10 wounds meaning that he's completely impervious to any attack that doesn't at least have S6. He's the biggest and strongest of all of Nurgle's Greater Daemons and is probably the strongest of all of his servants in general. If Ulkair has 2,800,000 hit points, then Scabeiathrax would have 280,000,000,000.
*[[Ku'Gath]] - Ku'Gath was once a small nurgling sitting on the shoulder of Nurgle while he was concocting his greatest disease yet. Suddenly, Ku'gath slipped off of Nurgle's shoulder and straight into the pot he was cooking in, accidentally swallowing it all and becoming a Great Unclean One in the process. Nurgle laughed the whole incident off, but Ku'Gath felt guilty of robbing Nurgle of his greatest achievement. Since then, Ku'Gath has been trying to recreate the disease that he ruined in his ascension to greater daemonhood.
*[[Rotigus]] - A Great Unclean One worshipped throughout both the Mortal Realms and the Milky Way as a fertility god. Known as the "Rainfather" for his ability to conjure up Nurgle's Deluge, a rain of filth that perpetually surrounds him.
*[[Epidemius]] - A Herald of Nurgle and his greatest Tallyman.
*[[Horticulous Slimux]] - A Herald of Nurgle said to be his first Daemon he ever made (and by implication, probably was patient zero for Nurgle's Rot). Is Nurgle's chief Gardener, and rides a giant snail called Mulch.

===40k===
*[[Mortarion]] - Daemon Primarch of the Death Guard that hasn't done much since ascending to Daemonhood but to sit around all grumpy up until the Great Rift and Guilliman woke up. Mortarion has now reunited the Death Guard and are now having a party.
*[[Typhus|Typhus The Traveler, Herald of Nurgle]] - A rational fellow, mostly famous for being a tough son of a bitch to kill which is owed to the fact that he is encased in [[Terminator]] armor and is fully pledged to Nurgle. Typhus to Nurgle is what Khárn is to Khorne, which means that he's Nurgle's favorite mortal servant. Also famous for grabbing guardsmen and Marines alike with his scythe to drag them closer to his hug-friendly arms as well as causing zombie-plagues. Too bad that everyone who gets too close to him rot away into a pile of green slop. Typhus is also the name of a disease, because GW are nothing if [[Oinkbane|not subtle]].
*[[Ulkair|Ulkair the Great Unclean One]] - Ulkair is notable due to his history with the [[Blood Ravens]], and was imprisoned by Kyras a thousand years before the story line of Chaos Rising. Came back when Eliphas sacrificed a bunch of Blood Ravens and provided him with a Plague marine to possess. A notoriously tough bastard.
*[[Foulspawn]] - Foulspawn is the only known case where, after becoming a [[Chaos Spawn|you-know-what]], it did not die, but rather continued it's existence by swallowing its victims whole. Currently keeps the record of giving the best hugs in this galaxy.
*Cor'bax Utterblight - Cor'bax Utterblight is a daemon prince that was summoned by the [[Word Bearers]] during the [[Horus Heresy]]. He was created by [[Forge World]] for the Horus Hersey tabletop game.
*Deacon Mamon - A demagogue of Nurgle who ascended to become a Daemon Prince after his efforts in corrupting the planet [[Vraks]]. Another Forge World Nurgle Daemon Prince.

===Fantasy===
*Orghotts Daemonspew - The child of a human Witch and a Great Unclean One (don't ask, imagine the details yourself) who wants to join his father by becoming a Daemon. Tried to contract Nurgle's Rot and become a Plaguebearer, but when his already quasidaemonic nature made that fail he decided it was better to become a Daemon Prince. Leader of the Maggoth Lords.
*Festus The Leechlord - A man who fancies himself to be Nurgle in mortal form. Constantly makes concoctions from experimental diseases and forces his enemies to drink them.
*Bloab Rotspawned - A Maggoth Lord made up mostly of flies wearing a human skin as "punishment" for torturing tiny insects out of petty spite.
*Morbidex Twiceborn - A Maggoth Lord who resembles a Nurgling, and commands a vast swarm of them. Has a grudge against Tzeentch due to being severely burned as a child and his tribe believing that Tzeentch was the god of fire.
*[[Tamurkhan]] - An extremely successful Maggot Lord blessed with the power to [[Lucius the Eternal| claim the flesh and bodies of his enemies as his own if defeated in combat]], albeit in a much more... direct way than his obvious comparison. Very successful, and almost claimed the Throne of Chaos before being undone in his hour of triumph by a carefully-orchestrated suicide attack.
*The Glottkin - A trio of Daemonic brothers: Ghurk - that has become something akin to a Great Unclean One, Otto - the tactician of the three, and Ethrac - the Wizard.
*Gutrot Spume - A highly mutated servant of Nurgle who's known for his arrogance. Leads a vast fleet of Nurglite pirates.

===/tg/===
*[[Puc'Kao]] - Nurgle's daemonic tooth rot fairy, gum disease and sweets. Often seen as an overweight, pus-dripping cherub who likes to play pranks on people, usually by removing healthy teeth from the mouths of unsuspecting mortals as they sleep. As you can expect he is a fun guy.
*[[Luke]] - I don't know where to start. Just... Ugh.
*[[Chris-Chan]] - obvious due to his lack of changing anything about himself, as well as any semblance of personal hygiene, Nurgle is easily the only person who could love this guy.
*Cystus The Malignant - The sickest fuck to inhabit realspace since Typhus himself. Fan created Chaos lord whose endeavors are still being written.
*[https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/220879.php Chairlord of Nurgle] - A morbidly obese Ohio man whose very flesh became fused to his recliner, rendering him unable to be removed from it. There he remained seated in the recliner for multiple years soaking in his own filth and bodily excretions and covered in maggots, being fed by his underlings. When the news of his death reached /tg/ around 2011 they immediately recognized the man as a herald of Nurgle, dubbing him the Chairlord.
*Mary Mallon - The infamous "Typhoid Mary" herself. She was an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen associated with typhoid fever - she had the virus and was immune to the virus herself but could infect others (like a true champion of Nurgle). Mary worked as a cook but after people she served started falling ill and her infection was discovered, Mary was put into quarantine. Despite this she was adamant she wasn't sick and escaped multiple times to go back to her cooking job before being recaptured incarcerated in high level security for the rest of her life (over 30 years). During her life she is presumed to have infected 51 people, three of whom died.
*Anti-vaxxers.
*Healthy At Every Size ''un''activists (so most, if not all of, the fat acceptance movement)

As a general note, the followers of Nurgle usually retain high levels of common sense compared to followers of the other Chaos Gods. Probably because they don't usually go insane to the point of uncontrollable defecation, they just defecate uncontrollably (sanity has nothing to do with it). They usually get creative in their conquests and tend to get cool gear and use it well. Plague Marines for example, got bored with regular frag - and krak grenades and decided to instead use the SEVERED HEADS of their enemies: zombified, plague-ridden, embalmed, severed heads.

==Famous Diseases==
You thought Khorne was bad? You ain't seen nothin'. Here's what Nurgle cooks up for his grandkids.

*Destroyer Plague - Plague flies burrow into every [[PROMOTIONS|orifice]] and fill you with their eggs. This causes you to burst in an explosion of more plague flies, which literally fill the assholes of everyone nearby. Plague flies are also spread via reading about plague flies. This is the worst Nurgle plague.
*Bonewrack - Your own bones rip your body apart and suffocate you. This is a mild Nurgle plague.
*Doubtworm - A [[Meme|memetic]] virus which is spread by hearing a very specific phrase, "The Emperor Isn't Real." Those infected turn into zombies, turn back into humans, and then turn into big cuddly worms. This is the best Nurgle plague, because The Emperor Isn't Real.
*Fydae Strain - Basically turns psykers into Typhoid Mary. You, a latent psyker, are infected by the Fydae strain and are forever [[Plot armor|immune]] to it's effects. You are also likely immune to all diseases, forever. The downside is that you are now unknowingly and invisibly spewing out the Fydae Strain virus everywhere. You do just fine, it's just that everything else around you rots away, spreading to cover the entire planet. The disease is sapient, holy fuck, and does what it can to remain undetected. Everybody starts rotting away almost at the same time, and then they usually have seizures so hard they get killed. This also summons a bunch of Nurgle cultists, but honestly at this point it doesn't matter. This is the worst Nurgle plague.
*[[Obliterator]] Virus - You turn into [[Dakka|guns]]. Not such a bad way to go considering the alternatives.
*Walking Pox - Similar to Zombie Plague, but [[Grimdark|worse]]. Instead of a regular zombie, you become a shambling, rotting abomination which is extra spiky and bloated. You are fully conscious and aware as you watch your disgusting rotsack body kill everyone you love. Walking Pox is spread by moaning.
*Nurgle's Rot - Your body and soul start rotting away. This is a slow process with no cure, because Nurgle is an asshole (not the kind that gets filled with fly eggs though). A disgusting seed pod is created in Nurgle's [[Magical Realm|realm]] in the warp. When your body inevitably fails and your soul has been sucked into Nurgleville, the seed pod drops and opens. A [[Age of Sigmar|new, much shittier version]] of you shambles out as a plaguebearer. This is the worst Nurgle plague.
*Witch-curse - You, a psyker, get supercharged so hard you kill everyone nearby.
*Let me tell you about Nurgle's plague flies.

Nurgle's diseases are far less damaging in the big picture than one would think. Given the literally crotch-liquefying horribleness of Nurgle's diseases, and the demostrated fact that a couple of Nurgle cultists can destroy a solar system's worth of planets, Papa N has remarkably little impact. Somehow everyone's not [[Necron|dead]] [[Nagash|yet]]. The meta reason is that WH40K: Medicae would be a truly shitty game. In universe, it could be that these sicknesses are warp-augmented and are not viable in a place free of warp interference. The lack of challenging the status quo with a superplague could also be because Nurgle is ''literally'' the god of "status quo is god". We've also got some [[Lord of Change|guardian angels]] watching over us, and a different [[Tzeentch|god]] working constantly to fuck up Nurgle's [[Just as planned|plans]].

== Trivia! ==
Nurgle has been modelled after [[wikipedia:Nergal|Nergal]], the Assyrian deity of pestilence, disease, underworld, decay and hunting. He is the only Warhammer deity which has connotations to the real life deities.

== Gallery ==
'''<nowiki>*WARNING! NURGLINGS ARE NOT THIS CUTE!*</nowiki>
{{Promotions}}
<center>
<gallery>
Image:Nurgbeard.jpg|A neckbeard dedicated to Nurgle.
Image:Chaos God DnD.png|He brings a lot to the table.
Image:Nurglies.jpg|Nurgle's followers.
Image:Nurglette.png|Nurgle also has daemonettes. Too bad they all have chlamydia. (Then again if you worship Nurgle, it doesn't really matter!)
Image:Loli-daemonette_(12).jpg
Image:Loli-daemonette_(4).png
Image:Loli-daemonette_18.png
Image:Nurgmonette.jpg
Image:Loli-daemonette_(20).jpg|Cultists devoted to Nurgle have a different relationship with their daemons than those devoted to [[Rip and tear|Khorne]], [[Rape|Slaanesh]] or [[Not as planned|Tzeentch]].
Image:Nurgle_troops.jpg|At home with the family.
Image:Chaos.jpg|She slept with the judge!
Image:Mallon-Mary_01.jpg|Typhoid Mary: A famous 20th century Nurgle champion.
Image:GreatUncleanOne.jpg|Greater daemon of Nurgle, the Great Uncle One.
Image:pool.jpg|The powers of Nurgle laugh in the face of chlorine.
Image:laidbacknurglette.jpg|Daemonette of Nurgle (don't fap, it'll fall off).
Image:Nurgle trainer copy.jpg|None loves his Pokemon more than the Nurgle Trainer.
File:Typhus the traveller by chameleonbot.jpg|The Herald of Nurgle, charged with organizing everything for the big guy's arrival at concerts, parties, etc.
File:Dranon8.jpg|It's so mushy that it causes disease. Literally.
Image:Plaguemarines.jpg
Image:Decent Nurgmonette.jpg
Image:Cultist-Nurgle.jpg
Image:I Don't Know What This Was About But I'll Upload It Anyway.jpg
Image:Nurgle_aspiring_champion.jpg|An aspiring champion of Nurgle. Aspiring because he got caught.
</gallery>
</center>

{{Template:ChaosGods}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Age of Sigmar]][[Category: Maggotkin of Nurgle]]

Star Wars

2020-03-14T13:27:32Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* The Books */

{{Star Wars}}
[[File:Star-Wars-Logo (1).jpg|center|500px|]]

{{Topquote|A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....|Star Wars opening text}}
'''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D0ZQPqeJkk/ Star Wars]''' is one of, if not ''the'', most influential media franchises of modern times, let alone its effect on science-fiction and fantasy. Indeed, among [[/tg/|nerddom]], it is challenged by only a few others, like [[Star Trek]] and [[The Lord of the Rings]].

The incredibly ardent fandom is spread worldwide and has a strong presence in popular culture. Many of the characters, like Darth Vader and Yoda, are iconic even to the general public. John Williams' score for the original trilogy is probably the best-known film score of all time. The universe has spawned numerous video games, hundreds of novels, multiple TV shows, one of the largest merchandising franchises ever, and, relevant to /tg/, a whole bunch of board, card, and roleplaying games.

It is also the current leading world source of [[Skub]].

==The Basic Concept==
Star Wars was originally a series of epic science-fantasy "space operas" that roughly followed the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. They're set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," [Note: this makes the entire series a fairy tale] where a mysterious life force called (reasonably enough) the Force permeates everything. This, in turn, can be wielded by certain people, giving them pseudo-magical abilities; thank the Emperor (no, the other one) there were no Commissars in that universe. Those who use it for good become mystical, selfless warrior monks called Jedi, whereas those who use it for evil are ruthless, self-serving bastards called Sith. However, the Force must always be in balance, so any time the Sith arise to cause imbalance, the Jedi have to pull together and take them out to restore the natural order.

The so-called Original Trilogy (made up of films IV through VI, released from 1977 to 1983) followed a young man named Luke Skywalker who becomes a Jedi and re-balances the Force. Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance is fighting to end the oppressive Galactic Empire, which is secretly led by the Sith. Luke and his Rebel companions eventually defeat the evil Emperor Palpatine, but along the way they discover that his lieutenant, Darth Vader, is actually Luke's father. A financial, critical, popular and cultural H-bomb, these movies are basically the filter through which Generation X perceives the world... for better or worse.

The so-called Prequel Trilogy (made up of films I through III, released from 1999 to 2005) explained how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and how the Galactic Empire was established. This involves a lot of convoluted politicking in the Republic, which is then torn apart in the Clone Wars, where the Republic (with an army of clones led by the Jedi) fights against the Confederacy (with an army of robots led by [[Necrons|General Grievous]] and secretly controlled by the Sith). It was not as well received as the first trilogy, for reasons we'll talk about below.

There's also a so-called Sequel Trilogy (made up of film VII and presumably films VIII and IX), which started in 2015 and picked up the story some three decades after the Emperor's defeat with a new generation of heroes taking on the remains of the evil Empire, which is a group of extremist former Imperials calling themselves the First Order. However, Episode VII aka ''The Force Awakens'', was directed by J.J. Abrams, who's mostly known for the [[skub|skubtastic]] [[Star Trek]] reboot, while Episode VIII was written and directed by Ryan Johnson who was a young director known for plot twists and genre experimentation on a handful of movies and television episodes that openly said he wanted to "subvert expectations" and make half of viewers dislike his work, then got pissed when half of them disliked his work. The result managed to fracture the Star Wars fanbase over issues of dull rehashing for VII and a whole laundry list of reasons for VIII (ranging from small ones such as it being too different, to major issues like half the movie being filler), as well as those who still enjoyed them and very little common ground between the three groups.

Finally, there are the so-called Anthology movies, standalone one-shots involving characters and plotlines that aren't a part of the main "Saga" films, except they kind of are. The first, Rogue One (2016), is an immediate prequel to Episode IV that follows those Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans. The second film follows a young Han Solo and pals Chewie and Lando. A third rumored one follows Boba Fett.

There are also three separate TV series. The first one, ''Clone Wars'', was based on traditional animation, whereas the later one, '''''The''' Clone Wars'', was a weird 3D animation. They're both pretty good. There was also a terrible theatrical release that was basically just an advertisement for ''The Clone Wars'', but, since it's even worse than the Prequel Trilogy (hint: babysitting Jabba the Hutt's kid), nobody talks about it much. The third series is Disney's ''"Rebels"'' which is set between Episodes III-IV and it takes itself far less seriously than Clone Wars did, and is more of a homage to the original trilogy since not every character in the series is the owner of a lightsaber nor are they constantly talking about grown-up politics, senators and trade embargoes... pretty much the things that clogged up the plot of the prequel trilogy.

And then there's the whole Expanded Universe, which covers pretty much everything not covered by the films, like the Old Republic (set thousands of years before the prequel trilogy, when there were a hell of a lot more Sith and Jedi around) and the New Republic (set immediately after the original trilogy, explaining what became of all the characters. It could also reach 40k levels of grimdark with races like the [[Dark Eldar|Yuuzhan]] [[Tyranids|Vong]] characters like [[Vampire|Darth Nihilus]] and beings like [[Old Ones|Abeloth]].

The EU is no longer considered in the main canon of the films and TV series, due to the new sequel trilogy which does not follow EU, the reason for this being, according to Disney, that following EU would restrict their creative freedom. The reaction to this was, well, [[skub|mixed, for lack of a better word.]] They've since noted that they'll slot ''some'' of it in on a case-by-case basis, but the canon is in a highly fluid state at the moment. EU is now officially called Star Wars Legends, though most fans still refer to it as EU.

==Why is it so popular?==

Star Wars is as accessible as science fiction gets. It doesn't require extensive knowledge of a fictional world (a la ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' or ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'') or cultural background (as ''[[Star Trek]]'' sometimes does) to make sense. Those elements are present for those who want them, but they largely stay in the (very rich and vibrant) background. It has well-shot action and good ''enough'' dialogue to make it interesting for both kids and adults (as well as allowing parents who grew up with it to watch it with their children, thereby hooking the next generation of viewers). It has simple, good-vs.-evil themes that resonate with almost anyone, anywhere, at any time. The science fiction elements are generally handled well if you don't obsess over making science fiction realistic and hard. It's a prime gateway drug for sci-fi which still holds up to the experienced eye, [[Isaac Asimov]] saw and rather enjoyed the films. All in Fourteen hours of cinema, plus optional sides for those who want it.

There's a ton of merchandise that is, of course, really cool. Also, given it's crossed over into the mainstream, many people feel comfortable being part of the community without feeling judged as "nerds" (as they might with ''Lord of the Rings'', ''D&D'', ''Star Trek'', ''Warhammer'', etc.).

Again, they roughly follow the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. If you think about it, 6 of the 9 films can be summarized as: hero begins his journey under the tutelage of a wise (more or less) man, they encounter a threat which has captured/enslaved a princess/girl, who was in one way or another connected to an important secret (usually a superweapon but could be the identity of a political figure or the location of someone); the heroes save the princess/girl but someone dies tragically in a battle against the villain while someone else is blowing up a space station or a spaceship afterwards they are happy, they celebrate and mourn the loss of the poor bloke who died.

Additionally, the first film can be summarized as a samurai and a gunslinger team up to save a princess from Nazis in space. That is multiple cinematic genres at once, following the style of the epic myth.

==Setting==
Due to article bloat, [[Star Wars Setting]] is now its own page.

==The rise of the original trilogy==

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away....etc etc you all know the lines.

A man called George Lucas had the idea to create a series of epic sci-fi space operas that would become so successful that Disney would take notice and give it the franchise fluttering eye lashes, trying to seduce it.

They would be called... ''Flash Gordon''.

Unfortunately for Georgie boy, and fortunately for modern nerddom, Dino de Laurentiis already owned ''Flash Gordon'', and were busy making their own, hilariously eighties version, so he said, screw it, I'll make my own!

He decided to start with the fourth movie in the series he envisioned, for at the time he didn't have the special effects to create the first three to the standard he wanted, and/or he just kinda made up the first movie as he went along (drawing heavily on Akira Kurosawa's seminal samurai action film, ''Hidden Fortress'' in the process as well as the book [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces''], a complex 1949 Joseph Campbell analysis of the various mythologies of human history all boiled down into the basic archtypes and elements required in heroic myth). So Episode Four ''A New Hope'' was created (simply titled ''Star Wars'' at the time) and it is not an exaggeration to say it changed the face of sci-fi and general moviemaking forever, bringing a new era of special effects and imagination to cinema and changing the lives of many who would go onto to become dedicated fan boys.

Originally, the studio had forced Lucas to take ever-increasing paycuts for what they were sure was going to be a flop, and only let him keep merchandising rights. However, whatever his flaws, George Lucas was a man of vision. Having helped pioneer the summer blockbuster, he went on to do the same to ginormous piles of movie-tie-in memorabilia. His production company, Lucasfilm ended up rolling in dosh, and with Episode Five ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and Episode Six ''The Return of the Jedi'', the legend of Star Wars and its place in cultural history was assured.

tl;dr: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4w7ChpuaM Pretty much this.]

==The coming of the prequel trilogy==
With the year 2000 coming, George Lucas felt that special effects technology had reached the level he wanted and began to create the first three movies in the star wars story he had envisioned. (As a side-note, he also made some touch-ups to the three original films, re-mastering them with special effects and a couple of extra scenes that weren't doable with the eighties' animatronics. But those were mostly accepted/shrugged away since they didn't deeply modify anything.)

The hype for the movies was immense.

And then the first movie, Episode One ''The Phantom Menace'' came out.....and there was nerd rage beyond expectation.

Part of the problem was that the immense expectations of the fandom had grown until anything less-than-perfect simply would not do, so perhaps that is somewhat to blame for the reaction to the prequel trilogy. In a vacuum one has to admit that they aren't completely ''[[Twilight|terrible films]]'' .

Episode Two ''Attack of the Clones'' and Episode Three ''Revenge of the Sith'' followed after a few years each and didn't garner nearly as much hatred, though fans complained they didn't match the greatness of the original trilogy, more concerned with flashy action and effects than competent story-telling; but hooo-boy did it deliver in flashy action, with laser armed [[MI-24 Hind|MI-24's]] full of <s>storm</s>troopers extracting jedi from a coliseum full of shooty killbots.

''Revenge of the Sith'' did, however, receive higher ratings than ''Return of the Jedi'', and is generally seen as the best and most-complete of the three prequel films as a story. Unusually the novelization alters some details and is considered a legitimately good book on its own merits.

What was generally more well received (despite a rocky start with a two hour pilot being pressed into service as a movie and an art style that took some time to gel) during this time for Star Wars was the Clone Wars animated series (both the traditionally-animated ''Clone Wars'' and the later seasons of the CGI show '''''The''' Clone Wars'', the latter which most everyone agrees is what the prequels should have been), following the war between the Republic and the Confederacy that sprung up during the time between the second and third of the prequels.

It'd be ''really'' hard to find a group of movies more skubtastic than the prequel trilogy, and saying a good or bad thing about it in front of the wrong crowd's sure to provoke huge amounts of nerdrage. In defense of the prequel trilogy's sins, they did at least do their own thing. Because of how much money the original trilogy made, practically every form of media in the 80s and 90s aped it to some form or another, and instead of falling back on the same old shit the prequels branched out and tried to get out of the franchise's comfort zone a bit. While a lot of it sucked, it blazed a trail for better writers to follow and helped liven up the universe by showing us the galaxy beyond fuckhueg spaceships and faux-Western shitholes like Tatooine. And all but the most [[Neckbeard|diehard OT purists]] can get behind shit like Naboo architecture, the Clone Army and Mace "The Ace" Windu. From a story perspective the worst sin of the prequels was demystifying the force, and subsequent works have largely swept that detail under the carpet.

==Disney and the sequel trilogy==

Finally, all the efforts by Disney to woo George Lucas paid off and in 2012 Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise for 4 billion dollars and immediately announced they would produce a new trilogy of films set after the original trilogy.

Expectations were almost as high as the private fears of the fans. Bringing on the creative talent behind the [[skub|skubtastic]] ''[[Star Trek]]'' reboot was equally... well, [[skub|take a wild guess]].

For sake of sanity, these section have been condensed. Read at your own peril.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 7: The Mouse Awakens===
''Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens'' debuted in December of 2015, and reception was what you would expect: the film was immediately a massive success from a monetary standpoint as everyone ([[China|almost]]) everywhere rushed to the theaters in response to the hype, with children engaging in as many repeat viewings as their parent's money could allow as fans did the same thing with their own. It has become a financial hit with the general public and a (critically) generally well-reviewed piece, with decent cinematography, special effects, technical stuff, etc. It also went on to become the third biggest financial success in film history (at the time), when not adjusted for inflation.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Fan response was a good deal more mixed. Many criticize the plot for rehashing Episode IV, without doing anything to establish its own identity and claim that it had a bland main character, [[Mary Sue|who had too many abilities]] whereas others find the replication of ''Star Wars'' feel an acceptable trade and praise it for being a decent action film, [[skub|and claim the lead doesn't outdo any of the previous main characters]].

Some would argue that by rehashing the original trilogy it basically nullified the accomplishments of the original crew; the Empire's still around, they've got yet another superweapon, Han & Leia split up, Luke failed to rebuild the Jedi, etc. Other fans praised it simply for being a new Star Wars that was better than the prequel trilogy (expectations were lowered due to those, to be honest). Some see poor storytelling when there was no proper showing of what went on in the galaxy 3 decades since Palpatine died, and not explaining what caused big character changes like why Han returned to his old ways or Luke ran from his friends was critical. Other say this is going to be explained in the next film and people should keep their curiosity. Some argue even with their superweapon, none of the villains feel threatening. Others argue the incompetence of the main villain is a fresh change and the point of the plot will be to see him change, to be more competent, or even learn to become good.

Overall, those against argued JJ Abrams' mystery box approach may do well for a TV series but does not mesh with films that take years to make. Defendants held the position that fans should wait to see whether the next film will do anything with the unexplained plot points.

Coincidentally, when Hamill and Fisher were originally approached by Disney to reprise their roles as Luke and Leia, they ''didn't want to do it'' right from the start. But, they didn't want to give an out-and-out "no" answer either, so they told Disney they'd return if Harrison Ford agreed to return as Han Solo as well. Knowing how much Ford ''hated'' Solo, Hamill and Fisher figured they were safe, until Disney irresistibly sweetened the deal for Ford by agreeing to kill off his character, thus forcing a reluctant Hamill and Fisher to make good on their deal... [[skub|only for the three characters to never appear on the screen at the same time.]] To be fair, Hamill has a history of saying he won’t do something only to immediately agree like he’s making a standard sitcom gag in real life, even if that usually just applies to still voicing the Joker in Batman media.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars Rebels===
Disney also released their own CGI series: ''Star Wars: Rebels'', which is actually pretty ok (considering that it airs on Disney XD, it should be no surprise that they've toned down the graphic depictions of gratuitous violence, much to the chagrin of [[Neckbeards|those who love overly gory deaths]]). It focuses less on the Jedi that have come to dominate the franchise and more on the "boots on the ground" experience of the average characters, and while the show started slow and small, the plot gained momentum as the series progressed, especially after the first season.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Rebel movement starts to grow, several characters return from ''The Clone Wars'', and the enemies the main characters have to face steadily get darker and more dangerous as more of the Empire’s attention gets attracted. When Darth Vader gets involved (played by none other than [[Awesome|James Earl Jones himself]]) he immediately proceeds to [[Awesome|open a 24-pack of unstoppable whoop-ass on the rebel scum]]. The return of Maul resulted in three character deaths (possibly four), the crippling of one main character with another well on his way down the dark side, and to top it all off Maul himself was on the loose once again. Things did not turn out so well [[Grimdark|last time that happened]], so expect the body count to rise, especially with [[Creed|Grand Admiral Thrawn]] now also coming onto the scene. The show also continues the trend set by ''The Clone Wars'' in making the Force mystical again, though whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how you felt about the <s>bullshit</s> <s>scientific</s> [[Skub|skubtastic]] midichlorian explanation of the Prequels. The animation is on point with ''The Clone Wars'', which considering it's Disney should surprise less than nobody. Oh, and Steve Blum voices one of the main characters. However, it is also noted that Star Wars Rebels may indeed have [[Grimdark|dark ending]]. Which, to a degree, it did. An important character dies, and his padawan flees into the unknown regions, leaving us with two other characters to go look for him after the second Death Star blows up.

[[Skub|The way that Filoni (the creator of Rebels and The Clone Wars) has handled the Mandalorians, a fan-favorite warrior-culture based upon the Scots and Vikings, has either been met with praise from those who despised Traviss and her overpowering of said culture, or utter RAGE that he turned many of them into either pacifist morons or bloodthirsty barbarians- usually that particular criticism comes from the Traviss fanboys]]. Do take note, however, that the old ways for the Mandalorians are making their way back into canon, such as the language, the emphasis on martial honor, and the decentralized nature of their government.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars: Rogue One===
December of 2016 brought us the first standalone Star Wars movie, "Rogue One", showing the theft of the original Death Star plans.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

While "Rogue One" can be justly criticized for lacking in character development, that was basically mandated by being set just before another movie whose actors were now 40 years too old to reprise their previous roles. The cast of the movie includes almost no one who appears in Episode IV, and the few familiar faces who do appear show up as cameos. (Fair warning: spoilers)

Accordingly, every main character dies by the end. It still manages to pack quite a lot of [[awesome]] into the movie, with Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk and Darth Vader all used to great effect. Rogue One also answers several questions, plugs several plot holes, and just generally makes A New Hope make a lot more sense in retrospect. (No wonder Vader wasn't impressed when Leia claimed to be on a "diplomatic mission.") It also has the distinctions of being the only Star Wars movie to focus on regular soldiers instead of Jedi, and being more like the original Star Wars than any of the sequels, including the other two of the main trilogy. (The original, back before it was "A New Hope", was a genre mashup of samurai + gunslinger rescue princess from space Nazis, then team up for a World War II dogfight. This one is wuxia cast + heist crew do a heist in a WWII trench warfare war zone. There's surprisingly little 'War' in Star Wars.) Much, much [[Skub]] still exists of course, since no Star Wars movie will ever please all the neckbeards but out of the five post-Disney Star Wars movies released so far, this one is definitely the least divisive and arguably the best of the bunch.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===Episode 8: The Last Royalty Check (aka zomg Luke dies!)===
On December 14 2017, ''Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi'' was released world wide. The critical reception was [[Bullshit|extremely positive]], with many critics considering it the best movie in the series since The Empire Strikes Back. The fan reception has been a great deal more negative and [[Skub|mixed]], and a number of fans are convinced that Disney leaned on media outlets to shill the new movie or else. If you have watched the Empire Strikes Back, you ''WILL'' be [[Rage|disappointed at best]], if you want to see a Star Wars film that would finally expand the characters of Kylo Ren and Rey, you ''WILL'' be satisfied and disappointed at the same time, if you want to watch the film because it is the last film starring the great and wonderful Carrie Fisher, you ''WILL'' feel hollow and sad inside, and if you came to see a pair of lightsaber-wielding punks involved in one of the [[Skub|greatest or worst lightsaber battles of the franchise, you ''WILL'' be pleased or horribly disappointed]]. The Last Jedi is seen as one of the most divisive films in the franchise by the fandom, [[FAIL|which is one hell of an achievement]] considering other films.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The complaints about The Last Jedi are many: the treatment of Luke (which even his actor, Mark Hamill, hated, to the point that he has no interest in playing Luke again), Leia's Superman asspull, Finn's plot arc that serves practically zero purpose and has him undergo the same character arc as the last movie, the forced humor, the complete disregard for established [[fluff]], disregard for even the most basic laws of physics, the fact that the central conflict is essentially the same as the one in the originals right down to the last stand ripped straight out of ''Empire'', the PC bullshit (a hipster admiral who the plot always treats as being in the right despite killing 90% of the Resistance, the Gilded Age planet arc that [[Namek|sucks up a third of the movie to no benefit,]] Rose expressing her desire to get BLACKED with a horrendous and forced #LoveTrumpsHate one-liner in the final act) added solely to virtue-signal and the whole thing being basically a 2,5h screed against the franchise it belongs to and the culture which spawned it.

Fans have also criticized the movie for dropping or discarding major plot points from TFA and repeatedly invoking Shamalamadingdong-tier plot twists for cheap gotchas that are somehow less interesting than the recycled cliches they play off of. Director Rian Johnson has responded by shitting on said critics and trying to defend the film on social media like something out of an ED or RW article. (Important note: George Lucas never tried to defend the prequels, despite the huge backlash at the time, and he agreed with fans that [[C.S Goto|The Star Wars Holiday Special]] was an abomination.) It later came out that Johnson had not been given any kind of roadmap beyond Lucas' old and unfinished concept scripts and was not allowed to see what Abrams had done until TLJ was too far into production to write in most of the previous movie's plot points, which makes the fail Disney's fault just as much as it is Johnson's. Except we also know that he had at least a modicum of influence over the ending of TFA, so they must have talked on at least some degree. As with TFA Lucasfilm has tried to paper over the holes with tie-in material, and just like TFA the fans recognize the damage control.

The Last Jedi has without a doubt torn the fanbase apart in ways even the prequels didn't come close to, with many fans declaring that they have dropped the sequel trilogy. Even Star Wars' famous merchandising has taken a mauling, as [[/toy/]] giggles at Rose Tico and General Hux figures warming shelves while new product shipments go straight from the transport case to the clearance bin.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg_FoEy8T_A I'm Solo, Han Solo, Han Solo]===
On May 25th 2018, the 41st anniversary of the franchise, ''Solo: A Star Wars Story'' was released. The general consensus seems to be that it is the most average film in the series. At the very least, most people agree that it is at least better than The Last Jedi (if barely) and the backlash from that movie can be felt even in Solo: many fans have chosen to boycott the movie. Even before release, many fans had derided the whole affair as unnecessary: no one was really asking for a Han Solo origin movie, particularly one without Harrison Ford. Han Solo's entire life history had already been explored thoroughly in EU novels and comics, so the movie could only be a retread or a retcon, both things most fanbases tend to disapprove of.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Whether it is because of this boycott or not, [[Not as planned|something no one expected happened:]] ''Solo'' was a box office bomb. Its opening weekend performed way below expectations and as of this writing, it has only made half of the money it needs for it to break even. Disney still continued to labor under the delusion that China would save their bottom line regardless of the fact that Star Wars has never been popular in China.

So what is it like? Well, rather than being a space opera like the other films, this is a space Western. Rather than being about large-scale battles and saving the galaxy from tyranny, it's about heists and the galactic underworld. (Except for the Mimban sequence, which you'd swear was lifted from a live-action Imperial Guard movie.) It's essentially Disney's reboot/retcon of the old EU Han Solo novels, taking things that were mentioned offhand in the original trilogy (like how Han did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs) and making that the subject of an entire movie. The film was perhaps cursed from the beginning due to its [[Fail|troubled production.]] How troubled? The lead needed an acting coach to get through his shoots (Han may have walked away with the Falcon, but Danny Glover's Lando stole the spotlight every time) and 70% of the movie had to be reshot by a different director due to [[Butthurt|creative differences]] between Lucasfilm and the original directors.

The fail only compounded when it premiered and fans got to see what those "creative differences" may have wrought: the writing staff started spewing bullshit to the press about Lando being "pansexual" with no precedent in any Star Wars production including ''Solo'', the film's tone is a schizophrenic nightmare to the last-minute reshoots and Han's sidekick for most of the movie is [[What|a self-built female droid social justice warrior]] named [[/v/|L3-37]]. Audiences ''cheered and applauded'' when that <s>man</s>human-hating self-insert character finally fucking died. Perhaps the most damning sin is that these are the movie's only notable qualities: take them away and you're left with a movie that would make you think "Huh, that was okay," and then never think about it again for the rest of your life, were it not for the crippling disappointment of seeing one of the most beloved franchises in the world fall so far. Between the boycotts, the mediocrity of the movie itself, and [https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Gawker certain news outlets] claiming that the driving force behind said boycotts was [[/pol/]], ''Solo'' cratered so badly that [[Exterminatus|all non-''Episode 9'' Star Wars movies were for a short time shelved indefinitely, and the only side-movie still being worked on is the obligatory Boba Fett origin movie, which is more likely to sell tickets based on the name alone.]] Incidentally, one of the writers picked by Lucasfilm to handle ''Solo'''s tie-in content, Cavan Scott, has been hired by [[Games Workshop]] for the [[Warhammer Adventures]] series.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker (aka Plan Palpa-Nine from Outer Space)===
Your opinion of this movie is very easy to predict based on what you thought of the others; if you found The Last Jedi to be "refreshing", you'll absolutely HATE this one. If you hate all Disney content aside from ''maybe'' The Mandalorian, you'll hate this one as much as the others. If you absolutely detested The Last Jedi but have mixed opinions of the rest, you'll probably consider this to be the best of the new movies to varying degrees of actual enthusiasm. The movie largely undoes or ignores swathes of the previous one.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

After finishing shooting, the film was shown to test audiences (which JJ Abrams lied never happened). The film was extremely poorly received, one of many reasons being because it had [[Mary Sue|Rey curb-stomping Palpatine by herself in the final battle]] (test audiences reportedly either laughing at the film or had to be stopped from walking out of the test screenings). The poor showing made (then) Disney CEO Bob Iger - who was overseeing the screening - furious, and he immediately ordered the film to be reshot. The resulting reshoots were so extensive, [http://archive.ph/RLj94 they spanned months and the film didn't have a final edit till December 2019, the month of release], causing trailers to be so desperate for footage that wouldn't be cut they had to fill half the length with footage from prior films and stuff used in prior trailers. Further complicating matters was that the ''very stupid'' plot was leaked months before release. Despite extensive denials from Disney and media outlets, the leaks were proven correct by getting then unrevealed names and plot objects right. Camera leaks the week before release showed very little of the fantastically stupid content leaked months beforehand was changed, only minor details.

Before reading on, be aware that Rey and Kylo are no longer movie-type Force users, they have been changed to video game characters. Like KOTOR and Jedi Academy type where you just get powers by killing enough dudes. None of the powers are new to the franchise, but have been rarely seen and in some cases never before have in movies. You should also know that unlike the first Visual Dictionary that mostly just gave little prop trivia and plot hooks for other works, and the second which was mostly irrelevant until it gets referenced in a decade or two, the final Visual Dictionary is damn near required reading (this shit will get a "VD" to indicate it) since a lot of explanations were cut in the reshoots and recuts. Like for example the connection between Rey and Kylo is a "Force Dyad", basically one soul in the Force that inhabits two bodies (setting up a bit of a snarl what happens when one dies and not the other, and implying the personality is mostly in the brain which is why they can have unique experiences, but whatever) and warps space/time. This is why Rey was inexplicably powerful and knew how to do shit instinctively, because Kylo's training passed onto her, and likewise her nonstop playing with X-Wing training sims as a child made him a badass pilot. Dyads used to be far more common in the KOTOR era, and were apparently the inspiration for the Sith Rule Of Two. This is never mentioned in the final cut of the film, but leaks show it was in one of the earlier ones.

The movie pressed on with breakneck speed that doesn't have time for musical interludes or wipe transitions, the opening crawl informing you that Palpatine has somehow returned and sent a message to the galaxy with the Resistance trying to rebuild and gather information, Rey being trained by Leia on the planet Ajan Kloss (AKA not!Yavin #2, VD) after repairing Anakin's lightsaber (VD) who had received partial training from Luke before stopping for reasons explained later in the movie and supplementing the rest with her pouring over the Jedi texts, and Kylo Ren trying to find Palpatine because his existence is a threat to his rule. The movie takes a lot of inspiration from KOTOR era lore with Ren finding a Sith McGuffin Holocron-type navigation device on Mustafar (VD) showing him the secret planet of the Sith (not Korriban/Pesegam/Moraband, this one is a planet in a red nebula that is under constant lightning storms called Exegol). There he finds a MASSIVE Sith cult that has kept itself secret and managed to not only build a fucking massive fleet of Star Destroyers equipped with planetkiller guns like something straight out of the old canon, but divisions of Stormtroopers, technicians, and officers to fill them along with the typical cultists in robes who administer to keeping Palpatine alive and seeing to his Sith alchemy shit...which includes tanks containing multiple clones of Snoke, revealing the guy was literally born looking like that with a manufactured backstory all so Palpatine could use him as a puppet to create the First Order (which is almost a meta commentary about the backstory controversy).

Kylo is offered the chance to be the new Emperor by Palpatine, who is a corpse kept barely alive through methods some would consider... Unnatural, while strapped to a machine with [[Lord Kroak|his spirit sticking nearby]] (the filmmakers zig-zagged on the nature of this; first it was the original Palpatine who had somehow duped everyone in ''Return of the Jedi'' with a clone stand in, then the reshoots changed it to the original's zombie-like rotting corpse animated by his lingering spirit and Lucasfilm later retconned him to be a zombie-like clone of Palpatine after the film's release). The only requirement for Palps to pass him Emperorship is killing Rey, although Ren is immediately suspicious of the other strings attached (including choking a guy in a hissyfit when that concern is voiced) and decides instead to recruit Rey again, this time as a co-Emperor.

Finn and Poe obtain information about a spy within the First Order (yeah, you know its fucking Hux even before they say there is a spy at all) while Rey gets visions during her training with Leia. The spy confirms that Palpatine is legit and the info about the fuckmassive deathfleet is legit, and Rey finds the Jedi texts contain notes from Luke about his search for that planet. They go to his last clue, a desert planet that isn't Tatooine and is the middle of a festival where they find Lando has been holed up enjoying himself since him and Luke traveled there. They are immediately spotted by the First Order and escape from them to find the ship of one of Palpatine's servants who had last been seen there. They fall into sinkholes around the ship created by giant tunneling worms, and find the skeleton of Sheev's boy as well as a Sith dagger. 3PO is programmed with the Sith language, but his programming from the Old Republic era forbids him from giving the translation to civilians. Rey manages to get the sand worms to leave them alone by using Force powers to heal one's wound, and they attempt to get the Sheev's servant's ship up and running before they are attacked by the First Order. Chewie is taken prisoner and Rey wrecks Kylo's TIE Fighter before the two engage in a Force tug of war to pull the transport Chewie is on, which ends in Rey accidentally Force Lightning it and causing it to explode when she becomes frustrated with the stalemate. Chewie is revealed to have been on another transport and is taken to Ren's flagship Star Destroyer while the heroes, instead of do something sensible like seek a Rebel leader who can give security clearance for 3PO's protocol (Leia's the obvious choice), they head to a planet under VERY Nazi-like occupation to find a droid technician who can hack 3PO's memory. They encounter a woman from Poe's past, revealing he was a former spice smuggler like Han until abandoning his crew (causing them to fall into debt and become bitter at him) to join the Resistance. She threatens to turn the group in to pay off their debt [[Mary Sue| but Rey kicks her ass, earning her respect and she takes them to the technician without further incident.]] The technician unlocks 3PO's memory at the cost of wiping him. The translation reveals the dagger is the key to finding the Sith navigation McGuffin they are looking for. During this BB-8 reactivates Sheev's servant's old droid, who doesn't do much.

The heroes proceed to board Ren's flagship with the help of a First Order officer's badge, and shoot their way through as they free Chewie. Rey and Ren have another linked vision where her parents are revealed to have attempted to hide her from her grandfather Palpatine, who wanted to merge the souls of himself and '''ALL''' other preceding Sith (presumably not Revan, since his redemption is canon) while he discovers they are on his ship and orders it put on lockdown. Rey is confronted in the hangar by Ren, who offers her to join him again. She refuses and the Falcon appears, the engines blowing away the Stormtroopers while Rey jumps aboard. The crew head to Endor after finding out from Sheev's servant's old droid that it was where he was going to go next (this is the only thing the droid does other than serve as a "pet the dog moment" for the cast a few times) where the Death Star wreckage of the disk and throne room landed, encountering a division of former child-soldier Stormtroopers like Finn who went AWOL. The dagger has a slide-out metal prong from the handle which perfectly lines up with the corridor leading to Sheev's throne room. The team work on repairing the Falcon while Rey presses on ahead, alone, to the Death Star wreckage. Once in the throne room a hidden door opens, revealing a sanctum full of crystal mirrors that are the same as the ones she saw in her vision in Force Awakens (the scene where she snaps her fingers and all the mirrored ones do as well). There she finds the Sith McGuffin and gets a "The Cave" vision of herself as a Sith with a red double-bladed lightsaber which she fights. Kylo is waiting for her in the throne room, and crushes the Sith McGuffin in his hand before informing her they are linked in the Force as one soul inhabiting two bodies and offering her again to be the Vader to her Palpatine which she again refuses. The two fight while Finn and one of the Stormtroopers try to rescue her. They fight their way onto the remnants of the Death Star hangar, reminiscent of Anakin and Obi-wan in Revenge Of The Sith with water instead of lava, before Ren freezes as he senses his mother start to die. This pause gives Rey time to grab his lightsaber and stab him before she freezes sensing Leia actually pass away. Rey uses the Force to heal him, then steals his TIE Fighter while Poe and Finn return to the Resistance base. Rey initially attempts to hide on Luke's monastery to let Palpatine's bloodline die with her, but after lighting Kylo's TIE on fire (so she's destroyed 2 of his personal TIE at this point) Luke appears as a Force ghost to tell her <strike>Rian Johnson</strike> he was wrong, and was motivated by fear when he tried to hide. He reveals that all the Jedi who came before are rooting for her, and tells her where Leia's lightsaber is hidden. He reveals she stopped her training because in a vision she saw that her son would be destroyed by the Dark Side, and a Light Side counterpart would take up her blade instead. Meanwhile, Kylo is visited by the memory of Han. The two reenact the scene from Force Awakens, only this time Kylo throws his lightsaber into the sea and renounces the name Kylo Ren to become simply Ben again. Meanwhile the First Order blow up Poe's home planet where the droid technician and Poe's old crew were, although they had managed to get offworld by that point. Also, R2-D2 restores C-3PO's memory wipe by finding a backup which contains everything from before the mission.

Luke lifts his X-Wing from the waves and Rey scavenges the Sith McGuffin from the flaming wreck of Kylo's ship. As she proceeds to the Sith planet she sends out a beacon to track her progress, giving the entire galaxy a map to the Sith fleet. Poe, now leader of the Resistance, sends Lando with the Falcon and Nien Nunb to gather any forces they can, all the ones who refused to aid them in The Last Jedi, while the rest of the Resistance gears up to attack Sheev's fleet before they can leave the storm cloud. The initial plan is to destroy the navigation device which orients them to the rest of the galaxy without which the fleet cannot leave, until the commander of the flagship (a former Imperial officer) realizes what they are doing and orders it to be shut down so his own ship could serve as the navigation for the rest. Rey confronts Sheev in a coliseum/throne room full of the Cultist parents of the personnel of the fleet (VD) and is informed of his plan to have her kill him so all the Sith could merge with her and rule as basically the God Emperor of Star Wars. She raises her lightsaber before using the strange wormhole Force connection thing they have to pass it to Ben, who had gotten there with a salvaged TIE from the Death Star wreckage and was being beaten by his former servants, the Knights Of Ren. Armed with Luke's old lightsaber he kills them and proceeds to the throne room. Ben arrives and the two attempt to fight him. He simply Force Pushes them back and forces them to kneel before draining a portion of their souls, the "two bodies one soul" thing apparently being a massive source of Force power he can heal himself with to rule in his own rejuvenated body again (but with Darth Maul eyes) rather than Rey's. Meanwhile, the ex-Stormtroopers and Resistance ground personnel lead by Finn land on the flagship Star Destroyer (its still in the atmosphere of the Sith planet, thus gravity and breathable air applies) and due to bringing goat-horse things from Endor are not affected by onboard EMP that would otherwise short out speeders and tanks (which is a thing from past canon, mostly comics and novels, which they use to explain why such a thing doesn't happen more often). Meanwhile, Lando appears with a fucking enormous fleet (remember the backstory that the New Republic didn't have a fleet, instead paying for every planet to have a militia of their own which would unite when there was a big enough threat? Well, JJ finally remembered because all those fucks show up alongside a neat little game of "spot that ship from the series you know" in a few shots). They begin attacking the superweapons underneath the Star Destroyers directly, causing chain reactions that blow the entire ship.

Ben is Force-pushed by Sheev into a pit as revenge for how Vader did the same thing to him before taunting the dying Rey and unleashing a MASSIVE Force Lightning storm which shorts out the fleet. While this is going on the spirits of all the dead Jedi (like pretty much anyone they could find to record a line from any of the past movies or shows, including Ahsoka; which is pretty lame since it means she was killed off-screen, with natural causes being unlikely since Ahsoka wouldn't have been 80 yet, and even that's below the average Togruta life expectancy, though this may not necessarily be the case according to Filoni) who inhabit her body the same way that Palpatine is currently full of all the Sith. Rey manages to stand and deflects his Force Lightning with Leia's lightsaber, which isn't enough until Ben manages to climb out of the pit and throw her Luke's lightsaber; with the two together she's able to walk close enough to Sheev for his Force Lightning to burn him, and despite this being the third fucking time this has happened he does not turn off the lightning and instead Raiders Of The Lost Ark's himself into a skeleton before blowing up and destroying not only himself but the spirits of all the past Sith. Despite Palpatine's plan being to possess Rey when she kills him, for some reason he doesn't do so. The Jedi spirits leave Rey and she dies, with the barely lingering on Ben healing her. They share a kiss (reminder that since Sheev created Anakin, they're basically cousins, and their relationship is so adversarial it makes Edward and Bella's from Twilight look healthy, something the novelization tries to claim is "purely platonic") before Ben dies. His body vanishes, as does Leia's. The Resistance/Militia fleet destroy all the Star Destroyers after Finn's ground crew hijacks one of the cannons of the flagship to shoot at the ship bridge, killing the last of the old Empire and First Order leadership.

The heroes return to the Resistance planet where they celebrate, scenes showing the rest of the galaxy shooting the last of the First Order Star Destroyers play, Chewie is given Han's old medal from A New Hope, and the ex-Stormtrooper leader is hinted to be Lando's daughter or grandaughter implying a spinoff with the two. After the celebrations Rey returns to Luke's old home on Tatooine where she buries Anakin and Leia's lightsabers, revealing she built her own from her Force vision only with yellow blades instead of red ones. An old woman who was a neighbor of Owen and Beru comments nobody had been to that place in years and asks Rey's name. Seeing the Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia, she tells the woman her name is Rey Skywalker. The End.

Because god knows this fandom can no longer agree on fucking anything anymore, there was immediately fan wars going on everywhere Star Wars fans are found. Fans accused haters of review bombing, those who hated the movie claimed the critic score (which, if you recall, is mostly people who liked The Last Jedi and hate this movie for doing a U-turn on it) vindicates them. The fan fighting probably won't ever end, since now we apparently have to reevaluate if A New Hope and the Kenner Star Wars toys were ever good in the first place because some contrarians now claim the prequels are the pinnacle of Star Wars. Whatever the case, Disney CEO Bog Iger resigned in the middle of the work week in late February 2020, indicating that the backlash and fan alienation had a deeper impact than anticipated.
</div>
</div>

==Expanded Universe==

It can be said what makes a franchise into a long term lasting thing is when a wealth of extra story and background is created that expands on the original story far beyond what there was. It could be argued Star Wars leads the race in this, as the sheer amount of extra novels, graphic novels and games based on Star Wars can and does overwhelm the ordinary fan.

===The original EU/Star Wars "Legends"===

[[Image: Choices_of_One_PB_art.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Before Cara, before Rey, before Ashoka, Nomi Sunrider or Padme... there was Mara Jade]]
The background has expanded into the distant past before the founding of the current Jedi and Sith orders and into the (not-quite-so) far future looking at the descendants of Luke Skywalker and other popular characters. Uniquely, especially considering [[Warhammer 40K|other]] [[Star Trek|franchises']] track records, the Star Wars Expanded Universe is <strike>remarkably</strike> <strike>sorta</strike> sometimes internally consistent, both with other sources within the universe and with the films themselves, at least in comparison to other comparable settings. Of course, it's got plenty of its own [[C. S. Goto|problem children]] that slipped through, and the [[skub]] mine of it all isn't much shallower than that of 40K. Good portions of it do hold up well, largely due to the efforts of Lucas' company's continuity department leaning on everyone to hold it together. One thing that greatly helps is continuity books and articles aren't afraid to make small retcons to make even the most obscure and shitty sources (like that terrible PS1 fighting game) seem like part of an organized plot. Particularly well-loved parts include characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn (a rare alien officer in the Empire and popular enough that Disney brought him back to the canon from the EU) and Mara Jade (a Force-using former agent of Emperor Palpatine who later turned good, became a Jedi Master, married Luke and had a son with him) - interestingly both were created by the same author [[Timothy Zahn]].

Upon their acquisition, Disney said "fuck it" and threw out everything but the films and the Clone Wars cartoons. Some popular old stuff got mentions or appearances (and Thrawn got to be a major character), but the overall quality is even lower than the old EU. What was set up as a major book contains phrases like "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air" and random virtue signalling. As though to top the previous, Disney literally published a book with an entire chapter about mass wedding farts (Yes. Really.). The only good stuff is from established EU authors writing stuff far away from era of the Disney films.

The [[rage]] over the EU's scrapping was major among many fans of it, but for all Disney's shortcomings, they were in a tight spot. Towards the end all that continuity and consistency got thrown out the airlock for increasingly dumb and disjointed narratives and garbled plot threads to the point that the Star Wars logo was just about as much a sign of quality as the Nintendo approval stamp on shitty SNES games.

Another problem was that Disney is mostly family-firendly, and some of the Star Wars EU could get really dark. As in Warhammer 40k levels of grimdark. Examples of this are the invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong - forcenull space-Druchii (no no, not Comorrites though they have the pain and body modification fetishes for it, space-'''Druchii''', riding enslaved tyranid bioships) from another galaxy, Mnggal-Mnggal - mindraping gelatin lost on its way to Star Trek, and Abeloth - an ancient (she predates the Jedi and the Sith) yandere Force entity more like something from the Cthulhu Mythos and is so dangerous the Jedi and the Sith '''joined forces''' to fight her. It's difficult to envision how Disney could have kept the EU when even before all that it was struggling to find a market beyond the most [[neckbeards|dedicated fans]].

===The Books===

'''The Good EU'''
[[Image: Heir-to-the-empire-cover.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Heir to the Empire (1991): The book that started it all]]
* '''The Thrawn Trilogy''': The origination point for the EU, and focuses on the conflict with the Imperial remnants left over after RotJ. Named for the main villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, who went on to become one of Star Wars most well-loved characters. Basically the story "The Force Awakens" wishes it was. Also introduced Mara Jade, a sexy redhead that's everything Disney wishes Rey was and more.
* '''The Han Solo Adventures''': Star's End was the second spinoff book written and the first good one. Han and Chewie are trying to get some work done on the Falcon and wind up having to bust out some political prisoners to pay for it. Would have made for a better film than ''Solo'' did.
* '''Shadows of the Empire''': Shadows is set between ESB and RotJ and fills in the details of getting the Death Star II's plans, finding out where Han was taken, Luke building his own saber, etc by the introduction of another bounty hunter by the name of Dash Rendar. The Special Edition rerelease of ''A New Hope'' added the Outrider to the background of one scene. Most notable for the fact that it was also adapted into a video game for the N64 and PC.
*'''The Darth Bane Trilogy''': The origin of the Rule of Two for the Sith, along with a compelling protagonist and his apprentice.
* '''Revenge of the Sith''': The novelization is actually considered a serious improvement over the movie itself.

'''The Bad EU'''
* '''Jedi Academy Trilogy''': Luke sets up his academy on Yavin IV and tries to teach [[Rage|Kyp Durron]]. Imperial remnant superweapons hit ludicrous territory with the sun crusher. This was the beginning of Kevin J Anderson hammering out a couple dozen Star Wars books over about four years.
* '''Young Jedi Knights Series''': Set between Jedi Academy and New Jedi Order, mostly follows Han & Leia's kids.
* '''I, Jedi''': A retelling of the Jedi Academy Trilogy (see above) with more of Corran Horn from the first set of X-Wing books. Less derp in general but significantly more [[Mary Sue]]age of Horn.
* '''Legacy of the Force''': The survivors of the Yuuzhan Vong War are trying to rebuild the galaxy, but Jacen Solo turns Sith and becomes the main villain. The book series is infamous for nearly killing the Star Wars EU, threatening the franchise and issues between various writers years before Disney went down the same road (Jacen Solo was also a major influence for Kylo Ren). The biggest complaints were Jacen killing Mara, the heroes becoming idiots whenever they could've stopped the villains, poor dialogue, long-winded writing and the story being overstuffed with allusions to post 9/11 United States.

'''The [[Skub]] EU'''
[[Image: Yuuzhan-vong-eu2_bg.jpg|right|200px|thumb|The Yuuzhan Vong, [[Skub|either badass and interesting or grimderp canon-defiling villains]]]]
* '''New Jedi Order''': The longest-running (19 books long) and most divisive story of the EU. Luke's married to Mara and they're rebuilding the Jedi Order while Han and Leia are trying to reconcile the New Republic and Imperial Remnants. Han and Leia are also raising three kids and Mara's got a terminal illness. Then extragalactic aliens called Yuuzhan Vong - [[Imperium of Man|religious fanatics]] with [[Tyranids|organic technology]], a thing for [[Dark Eldar|pain and body modification]] along with [[Culexus|partial immunity to The Force]] - invade to take over the Star Wars Galaxy. Chewie dies Majora's Mask style, Mara's illness is cured and she gives birth to Ben Skywalker, the Vong take over Coruscant, lots is learned about the Force and the bodycount goes so high it could give Warhammer 40k a run for its money (365 TRILLION; only the War in Heaven or the Fall of the Eldar had anywhere near that many deaths in one event). A real love-it-or-hate-it series, some parts were good, some were bad and some were weird.
* '''Dark Empire''': Palpatine's back to save a dying franchise decades before Disney tried it. He even uses clone bodies to do so (but unlike Disney, Dark Horse didn't flip-flop on the lore), wrecks a fleet of enemy ships using the Force and at some point has his power reflected back at him. Starts off good, falls apart fast. Known for its love-it-or-hate-it artstyle and dialogue.
* '''Courtship of Princess Leia''': Deals with another Imperial remnant, where a Queen who could be potential ally against the Imperials offers a deal which hinges on Leia marrying her son. Meanwhile Luke and R2-D2 are working with a prince who was the original recipient of the offer. This one has force witches, who are encountered when Han tricked Leia into in an attempt to win her heart... it is ''really'' silly. If you like that, raise this higher. If not, it might even drop lower.
* '''Fate of the Jedi''': People are growing dissatisfied with the Jedi Order following LotF. Luke, Ben and the remaining Jedi are trying to keep the Jedi Order in check while several Jedi are wracked with a mysterious psychosis and a ancient Sith Tribe emerges from hiding. Han and Leia are looking after the political side of things while also becoming grandparents. Things take a turn for cosmic horror when a yandere, Force-using eldritch abomination who could doom the galaxy escapes her prison. The Sith apprentice Vestara rises through the ranks and finds herself in a Catwoman/Batman situation with Ben Skywalker. While being an OoM better than the preceding trilogy, FotJ has a very divided opinion among SW fans.

=== Disney Canon ===
[[Image:Star_Wars_Disney_Princesses.jpg|right|400px|thumb|Love it or hate it, they are now official ''Disney Princesses''.]]
It's still [[skub|debatable]] whether or not the new Canon holds up to the old EU, or learns to fix the problems that plagued it. We probably won't see what comes of it for decades to come. Disney Canon, as of 2020, seems to largely be built around the nine main movies (of course), with shows like Rebels and Clone Wars alongside anthology movies fleshing out stories that had been told in comics and books back before the Disney buy-up, but can now be seen on film.

A curious thing that has begun happening: Certain elements of the old EU is slipping into the Disney Canon. Plotlines like the Emperor returning, the Death Star plans heist and Han's path to become the smuggler we know him as all have bits and pieces from EU canon in them. In some cases, whole characters are ported in; the best example is Admiral Thrawn, who appears in Rebels. Other times, popular characters has their traits or stories ported into new ones (Finn and Cassian are both expies of Kyle Katarn, for example). This gives some credence to the argument that Lucasfilms and Disney wanted to wipe the slate with all the stories that had been told in the EU, so they could create their own, fully realized canon Star Wars setting that one could make movies - ''many'' movies - from. Considering the amount of shitty fan-fiction-esque stories the EU had, this may be for the best, but of course, storylines that people have loved for ages are also thrown out with the bathwater.

Now. Detractors of Disney-era Star Wars often talk loads about how the sequel trilogy invalidates the original trilogy, or how Disney screwed over Luke or ignored cool characters like Kyle Katarn. These are semi-valid arguments of course, but they ignore some of the biggest issues with the EU originally - it wasn't sponsored by George Lucas and Lucasfilms. They were sponsored fan-fiction in a sense, semi-canon from the outset and not really something that could be considered a part of the Star Wars setting, though George Lucas did work with the writers to a point, such as with the New Jedi Order book series (he gave them permission to kill off Chewbacca in the story). In fact, George never really considered them real stories; more like a parallel universe of his own Star Wars works. He accepted it because they bring in the big bucks when people would beg to have the official Star Wars logo on anything they produced.

That, and the sequel trilogy, underwhelming as it may be, was George's idea in broad strokes. The series was always going to have a sequel trilogy, and while the outcome isn't exactly what he (or we) wanted, quite a lot of it is. Luke being an exile on a far-away planet, who has to be roused to fight by a new, female Jedi? George's idea, not Disney's. A son of Han and Leia struggling with the Dark Side? Also George's idea (though Disney lifted a lot form the original version - Jacen Solo - for Kylo Ren). If anything, much of the direction comes from Lucasfilms; Disney just wants the movie to sell well. It's similar with Marvel nowadays.

So for better or worse, the Disney Canon is the first time the wider setting of Star Wars beyond the series and movies have become irrevocably canon, rather than "kinda-sorta-canon". Much of what we've gotten that is new is based roughly on George's own work as well. Remember this when discussing EU vs Disney in Star Wars - Either setting is cool for their own reasons, but the Mouse got little to do with it - and if you don't like it, bring it up with big man Lucas. Whatever the case, with Bob Iger's resignation as CEO from Disney (likely not on his terms, as he stated multiple times he would retire in 2021), things are changing (for better or worse).

==Star Wars:The Television Shows==
===Star Wars:The Clone Wars===
Technically, there are two series called similar titles. The first was 2004's ''Star Wars: Clone Wars'', an animated miniseries made by Genndy Tartakovsky (He of Dexter's Lab and [[Samurai Jack]] fame) chronicling, among other things, the titular Clone Wars and introducing a much more sinister General Grievous to the world.

But then we have ''The Clone Wars'', a CGI animated series (and tie-in movie) that we'll be talking about more and contributed more to the EU. One of the most universally known and loved parts of Star Wars, most fans worth their action figures and limited edition movie sets have watched the show and have an opinion on it one way or another. Some of the most notable characteristics are:

* The Clone Troopers are fleshed out,and we see that they are manly motherfuckers who make Guardsmen's balls of steel look like the cardboard their armor is made out of (seriously, in the movie, they literally charge straight into close combat with ''giant armored walkers with large guns'' and jump off roofs to get top of them to shoot them point blank, and punch droids in the face)
* Anakin Skywalker is actually a good, fleshed out character, with a good voice actor and shows his descent to child-murdering Force-choking asshat wasn't just him going 'welp, guess I'll fall to the Dark Side.' There was a fair amount of bad-cop “it was him or me” murder to get there.
* Introduces Ashoka Tano, a major character who's a female Togruta Jedi that's well-written, non-OP, non-Mary Sue and doesn't invalidate characters from the movies. Starts off a bit annoying in the Clone Wars movie, but manages to do something truly special: she ''learns''. Over the course of Clone Wars and Rebels, Ashoka probably has the most character development out of any other Star Wars character.
* Obi-Wan being a sexy one-liner spouting sarcastic badass.
* And many others.

However, there were some pretty derp moments too, such as

* Babysitting episode/movie.
* D-squad, where a bunch of droids become heroes of the Republic.
* Mandalore and how it's fluff was basically screwed 180 degrees, and then some.
* Droids were comic relief of the first and second seasons. It was annoying.

All in all, it was an good show that took some time to find it's feet.

After many years, a seventh season was been announced in an attempt to take away from ''The Last Jedi'' being shit and add ''something'' to the empty Disney Plus lineup. At least some of the episodes will be ones that were in production when the show ended. It promptly disappeared after that announcement for a couple years till it was announced it's coming out in 2019.

===Star Wars: Rebels===
[[Image:WomanYellingAtLothcat.jpeg|right|400px|thumb|''Stop fooling our plan, you rebel scum!'']]
Now that Disney owns Star Wars they can't go a season without something new to run on Disney XD, so after ''The Clone Wars'' ended they needed a series to milk episodes out of and launched ''Rebels''. ''Rebels'' is set a few years before ''A New Hope'' and covers the early formation of the rebellion from the perspective of one cell focused on the planet Lothal. If you liked ''Rogue One'' but thought it should be about 25 hours long and done in cartoony CGI then this is the show for you.

So what did we see in ''Rebels''?

* Grand Admiral Thrawn makes his debut in Disney Star Wars, along with the TIE Defender project. The character doesn’t lose much in the translation, and later on is arguably treated better than the source.
* The bearded old guy in the Endor strike team in RotJ turns out to be Captain Rex. Fan theory at first, later confirmed.
* You CAN [[combi-weapon]] a lightsaber and a blaster, and it's OP as shit
* Force wolves (no, not [[Rune Priest|those force wolves]])
* [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones-style]] Mandos (Krownest is pretty much Space-Winterfell).
* Imperial Inquisitors. Sure they don’t last long, but they were intimidating while they were, and it planted the seed that was used elsewhere.
* Some good appearances by Darth Vader.

So about the wolves... ''Rebels'' turns the force mysticism up past 11. Forget just being precog space monks with laser swords; as far as ''Rebels'' is concerned the Jedi are [[craftworld]] [[eldar]] without the racism. Rebels picks up the torch of the Clone Wars “Force Gods” and mixes in some of the straight-up fantasy shit from the Lucas era novels and the KOTOR/Old Republic Jedi philosophy schools and heresies beyond just “Light good, Dark bad”.

However, there were levels of derp that we got to see in this show, such as the following:

* Since this is a Disney cartoon, the bad guys can't have even a temporary victory. This changes Thrawn and the other Imperials from an imposing force to [[Abbadon|cartoon villains]], although Rebels villains manage to stay intimidating more than Grievous did in Clone Wars.
* Battles slower paced than a Death Guard movement phase. Enjoy characters having full conversations in cover-based shooting when everyone has Stormtrooper aim.
* Lightsabers the shape of toothpicks.
* [[Bullshit|Helicopter lightsabers]]
* Complete bipolarity in tone. This can create some great moments, but invariably ruins the mood episode by episode, or between the A and B plots.
* Iron Squadron. Just...fucking [[Rage|Iron Squadron]]
* Star Destroyers look terrible, mostly due to their bridge towers being way taller than they should be.

All in all, it depends on your preference.

Since the show does have a fair amount of dedicated fans, <strike>likely</strike> possibly more than the sequel trilogy itself, Disney has made a habit of planting Easter Egg references to Rebels in basically everything moving forward, usually in the form of an appearance by the iconic ship The Ghost or the friendly-ish space pirate character Hondo Ohnaka.

===Star Wars: Resistance===
Annnd they had to go and change things again. With ''Rebels'' coming to a close and a burning need to keep Star Wars on their lineup, Disney had a choice: find a new plot and setting for a formula and art style that had produced two successful multi-season shows, or throw it all out and start from scratch. Remember, this is Disney we're talking about, the company that once [[Fail|paid a quarter billion dollars to fire the producer who made ''The Little Mermaid'', ''Beauty and the Beast'', ''Aladdin'', and ''The Lion King'']] only for him to go and [[profit|found Dreamworks]] out of spite.

Like its predecessor, ''Star Wars: Resistance'' sets itself up as a prequel to a trilogy, in this case following the early days of the Resistance in its fight against the First Order. Where it differs from ''Rebels'' is that ''Resistance'' is playing the warm up act for a trilogy that nobody likes. On top of which, the creators abandoned the 3D style that ''Rebels'' inherited from ''The Clone Wars'', and replaced it with a cel style that's half ''Treasure Planet'', half ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' and all ''RWBY''.

To be blunt, this show is 100% pure crystal derp. Our star is Kazuda Xiono, a manic depressive who literally fanboy-ed his way into being a spy under the cover story of being a mechanic, two jobs he is not qualified for. This kid is the Invader Zim of Star Wars. Filling out the cast we have the original only cockney girl in space, an autistic alien, their widower boss who is definitely gonna die, D.Va and her ex-imperial officer dad, and BB-8. Poe Dameron shows up regularly so he can be Ace Fucking Rimmer without having to compete against Rey for the TOP SUE trophy. Reception was so terrible it was confirmed canceled at 2 seasons before the second season even started.

Part of the problem with ''Resistance'' is that the First Order has a doomfort that can frag planets across the galaxy, yet has to resort to hiring pirates to encourage settlements into accepting the First Order's protection racket. Palpy's empire was a model of efficient, heavy handed governance; its evil intent veiled from the masses who mostly resent it for bringing order. The First Order on the other hand is basically just Cobra Command, a font of evil hamstrung by flailing incompetence. As mentioned earlier, the backstory for the Resistance and First Order is basically that the First Order are a mobile pirate fleet with one untested secret base weapon lead by old farts of dubious actual leadership abilities from the Empire and their fanatical children with grunts made up of brainwashed child soldiers kidnapped from pioneer settlements while the Resistance is just a tiny militia that is so poorly funded they don’t even qualify as a single fleet since their few outdated capital ships are crewed by outdated droids and they don’t even have enough fighters to protect them, but rather than depict the potentially interesting dynamic this suggests the series just tries to be Rebels again, the same path the movies took even though at this point both factions are even smaller than they were in the movies.

===Star Wars: The Mandalorian===

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti western's so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up. Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well know spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Adeptus_Arbites|Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way" their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times, (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing). The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand awesome.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Jedi''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

==Wookieepedia==
One of the largest fan wikis ever created, this bad boy is extensively cited, has enormous variety, and has page upon page of talk. It was if Lexicanum, the 40k fan wiki, and our own glorious site were fused into a terrible beast.

==Impact on 1d4chan and associated games etc==

Star Wars has had subtle and clear impacts on a number of other franchises and genres and it can be ''incredibly'' hard to gauge the extent of it all. Certainly it didn't create the concepts of sci-fi, space battles, sweeping storylines, and a blending of mystical and scientific ideas, but it certainly popularized them during the years of the original trilogy and influenced many people that would go on to have interests in sci-fi, fantasy and epic adventure today.

Hell, look me in the eye and tell me that the lightsaber didn't give us the [[power weapon]]. But then again, magic weapons.
==Sabacc and Pazaak==
A rather unusual entry here but it's well in line, Sabacc is an actual tabletop card game from the Star Wars universe which is basically a hybrid of Poker and Blackjack. A Sabacc Deck has 76 cards, most of which in four suits of 16 cards numbered one to 16, plus sixteen wildcards in two sets with values that were either negative or (in the case of the Idiot) Zero. The goal of the game is to have a set of three cards who's total as close as possible to, but not over, 23 or -23. If you got 23/-23 (Pure Sabacc) which could only be beaten by an Idiot's Array (One Idiot, a two and a three, thus 23). The stakes are raised every cycle until the cards go down or one player is left standing who gets the pot.

The notable thing about Sabacc that sets it apart from real world card games is that the Cards can change value every turn. A Pure Sabacc can easily become an instant lose 25 and an absolutely lousy hand can become an Idiot's Array. They can be stabilized to fix their value, but everyone knows when you do so. This feature has so far prevented Sabacc from being released in tabletop form as of yet. ''(Of course, there are ways to deal with this, such as simply re-dealing unfixed cards, but never let it be said that nerds will choose practicality over purity.)''

In universe, Han Solo won the Millenium Falcon off Lando in a game of Sabacc.

Pazaak is an older game from an in-universe perspective, similar to Blackjack but its player versus player rather than player versus dealer and also has some aspects of a collectible card game. Goal of the game is to raise cards from the main deck until their total value is 20 or they can also choose to stand if they get close but don't want to risk it. Best out of five wins.

CCG-aspect of Pazaak comes from the sidedeck: both players collect ten cards for their side deck and then randomly take four cards from their side deck to their hand in the beginning of the game. Hand cards are used to either lower or raise the total value: so if the player raises cards from the main deck to the total value of 25, they can prevent dropping out if they have a -5 card or higher in their hand.
Cards which only either raise or lower the value are the most common of the side cards.
More rarer are cards which can be used to both raise and lower the value.
Then there are flip cards, which change certain main deck cards on the table to negative ones. So if the player plays a 2&4 flip card, all 2:s and 4:s on the table become -2:s and -4:s. Flip cards exist in 2&4:s and 3&6:s.
Then there is the double card, which doubles the value of the last played card. So if the player raises a 5 from the main deck, playing the double card would turn it into a 10.
Finally, the rarest side deck card is the tiebreaker, which grants the player a win if the game would otherwise end in a tie.

==Tabletop games for Star Wars==

=== Role-playing Games ===

[[West End Games]] made a Star Wars [[role-playing game]] called [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] AKA '''Star Wars D6'''. Like many West End products, it's a good game with the great misfortune of being published by West End games.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] picked up the license later and made two distinct RPGs based on their [[d20 System]], called [[Star Wars D20]] (imaginatively). Could be fun, but generally broken as hell, much like [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|its parent game]]. It was then utterly revised that into what they called the '''Saga Edition''', which is relatively balanced and pretty good.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars Roleplaying Game|a whole line of Star Wars-themed RPGs]], each one focusing on a specific style of play. You want to play a bunch of scruffy space outlaws (Edge of the Empire), members of the nascent Rebellion (Age of Rebellion), or exiled Jedi Knights (Force and Dedtiny), then they got you covered. Unlike their [[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]] games, which are all ''juuuuust'' different enough from one another to completely buttfuck any attempts at blending, all three gamelines use identical mechanics and are fully cross-compatible. Uses symbol-counting [[dice pool]]s with ludicrously overpriced custom dice.
Like the other RPGs they decided with the retardedly similar name, and thus this one is sometimes called '''Star Wars FFG''' to avoid confusion.

FFG have kept milking the franchise and in summer 2017, decided to [[Necromancer | reanimate]] the [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] with a "30th Year Anniversary Edition" print of the original game. It '''''finally''''' shipped in July 2018 after spending a year in limbo.

=== Card Games ===

The big [[card game]] set in the Star Wars universe is the [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]. It's no longer produced by Decipher, but there is still a sufficiently large player community to organize annual tournaments, rule on cards, and so on. SWCCG was radically different from the norm of card games, being divided into light and dark side cards with different backings, with light and dark always playing against each other. For tournament play a player would need both a light and dark deck.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] made the [[Star Wars Trading Card Game]].

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars: The Card Game]].

Obviously, nobody is capable of creating a Star Wars card game with an interesting name.

Aside from the real, physical, games there was also ''Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game''. It was a real, functioning, card game within the MMO that used all virtual cards. Unfortunately no server emulators have implemented it yet.

=== Miniature Games ===
[[Wizards of the Coast]] did a tabletop battles game imaginatively called Star Wars: Miniatures, based on an extremely dumbed down version of the D&D ruleset. The figures were meant to tie in with the Saga edition RPG, it wasn't terrible on its own, just impossible to collect for competitive play since figures came in random booster packs so you never know what you were getting for what faction. Who could possibly stand for that?

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is producing the [[X-Wing]] miniatures game based on individual starfighter combat (because, let's be honest, that's what ''Star'' Wars is all about). They have also released [[Star Wars: Armada]] which is a larger scale "fleet" combat simulator, using capital ships and squadrons of starfighters.

'''Star Wars: Imperial Assault'''

The latest [[Fantasy Flight Games]] addition to its Star Wars related games is a mix between a miniature board game and a skirmish wargame. It has two play modes:

One for campaign play where 1-4 players control a team of Rebel heroes and another player has the role of the DM, who controls the Imperial forces. The campaign, as the name suggests, focuses on character personalization, xp gain and the like, which you can find in any light RPG-esque (board)game. The main goal is to get a few friends together and casually play through the missions. Think of it as a Star Wars version of the original [[Hero Quest]].

The other play mode is skirmish play, where two players each get to assemble a team of miniatures plus a command deck (cards that have specific effects when played) and play against each other in an open-play scenario. The play area is still very limited to a few game tiles (as in a campaign mission) but players are free to bring whatever they want (with a few limitations of course). The skirmish part of Imperial assault is as close as you can get to an actual Star Wars skirmish wargame, but it is a missed opportunity from Fantasy Flight to create a true skirmish wargame (ala [[Infinity (wargame)|Infinity]]), not based on tiles and so confined spaces. Who knows what they have plans for though...

'''Star Wars Legion'''

And Fantasy Flight have now given us a fully fledged wargame, complete with AT-ST in the first wave. (They're 32mm scale, which means [[Games Workshop|no reusing your Imperial Assault miniatures]].) Legion has an integrated turn system, and the usual FF custom dice and forest worth of dead trees in cards and tokens that will be familiar to X-Wing and Armada players. The miniatures are PVC, reasonably detailed, easy to assemble pieces. A standard battle is 800 points, which could be anywhere from half a dozen to 16 units on the field, with an average army fielding 8-12 units comprising 30-ish models.

=== Board Games ===

The most famous and arguably best one is [[Star Wars: Rebellion]], an asymmetric two-player game that plays through the Original Trilogy in a wargame/worker placement-esque game. The Empire player must expand their already huge military base over the galaxy to build more ships and huge superweapons while searching for the Rebel Base, while the Rebels do their best to bite them in their heel, obscuring their movements and annoying the Empire until they have enough support to overthrow the Empire. As a [[Fantasy Flight Games|FFG]] boardgame, it's filled with a ludicrous amount of bits and pieces (including sweet models of Star Destroyers, Death Stars and Calamari Cruisers), as well as the trademark filled-with-small-exceptions ruleset. It's pretty sweet and still considered one of the best board games of its kind.

=== Card Miniature Games ===

In the late 00's, WizKids produced a short lived construct-able miniatures Star Wars game based on their styrene card system for Pirates of the Spanish Main. Although the game sold well, when NECA bought WizKids from Topps the rights did not transfer and it went out of print.

==Video Games for Star Wars==

To put it bluntly, every game which could possibly have ''Star Wars'' slapped onto it, exists. Flight simulators. Racers. Rail shooters. Doom clones. MMOs. Age of Empires reskins. Hell, there's even a Kinect variety game. Here's a few standouts...

* '''Knights of the Old Republic''': A pair of single player RPGs depicting a Sith war several thousand years before ''A New Hope''. KotOR is widely regarded as the best Star Wars video game ever, and was the framework for BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' series. Of all the Legends stuff, KotOR appears to still be in good standing with Disney since they continue to borrow from it. The sequel by Obsidian was the original skubtastic take on the franchise TLJ wanted to be but failed miserably. Got an MMO simply called "Old Republic" (since you can play as things other than Jedi and Sith) that is the sequel, which had a very rough start but stabilized enough to still survive to this day somehow). Possibly still canon in the Disney continuity since a lot of things get borrowed or referenced from it. Also the only thing in the EU to still receive new content.

* '''Jedi Knight:''' A series that started of as an early FPS named Dark Forces (so early that it was the time when FPS games were still known as [[Doom]]-clones) but Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had the protagonist become a Jedi. The Dark Forces name was dropped in favor of Jedi Knight after this. The series combines surprisingly deep lightsaber combat with standard shooting, though the levels can get very mazy at times. Introduced Kyle Katarn, one of the most popular characters from EU. Unfortunately, there has not been a new game since 2003's ''Jedi Academy'' and likely will never be thanks to Disney.

* '''Republic Commando''': An FPS that has the player command a squad of commandos. Its a great shooter but unfortunately, it never received a sequel and to make things worse, ended on a cliffhanger. The second act of the game, set entirely on a drifting Acclamator-class assault ship is particularly memorable and highly atmospheric. If one can look past outdated graphics, its worth trying out for anyone who wants a good FPS experience.

* '''Empire at War''': Made by the original developers of [[Command and Conquer]], it is the most notable strategy game to have come out of Star Wars. Notable for featuring three different modes of play: ground battles, space battles and galactic conquest map. Though ground battles are a bit meh, the space battles are great and the galactic conquest is certainly more interesting than only playing random skirmish matches. Even though its over 10 years old, it has a very active modding community. Republic at War, which changes the games Galactic Civil War setting to Clone Wars and Thrawns Revenge, set much further into the Galactic Civil War than portrayed in the films, are particularly great. There is also a remake mod in the works, aiming to bring the game up to modern standards in terms of visuals, sound and UI and the results do look good. Unfortunately, no great 40k mod.

* '''Star Wars Galaxies''': An early MMO, launched after ''Everquest'' but before ''WoW''. Galaxies is noteworthy for making force powers a prestige achievement requiring enormous in-game effort to unlock. The first expansion pack added a subgame that's a pretty solid flight game in its own right and the game eventually added an original, fully playable, trading card game that sadly has not yet been implemented in any simulator. Then ''World of Warcraft'' hit, Sony panicked and made Jedi a starting class and replaced the skill system with massive level grind, and offered refunds to the raging army of neckbeards. Subscription numbers tanked and never recovered. It would effectively be replaced by ''The Old Republic'', an MMO using the acclaimed KotOR setting. Like most "dead" MMOs that people loved it still lives on through illegal private servers (don't worry, the guys providing it would get busted, not people playing on it).

* '''X-Wing (and TIE Fighter)''': A series of ''Wing Commander'' clones released in the 90's. While badly dated today, they were the best fighter sims of their time, and if you can get past the highly primitive graphics some people still consider them to be the best to this day. Interestingly, TIE Fighter is largely seen as the best of the series while the N64 era Rogue Squadron and Shadows Of The Empire games are seen as being far more visually modern but largely inferior sequels. Did we mention you had to use a flight stick controller basically made for these games to really do well at these?

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2005)''': Not to be confused with the one released by EA in 2017. Solid game from the new-defunct Pandemic studio (fuck you, EA) in 2005 told from the perspective of a clone trooper that survived all the way up to the battle of Hoth, with a very down to earth boots on the ground approach. Also, just being thrown into random matches as a soldier because fun. Despite some issues, it remains the high point of the Battlefront series as well as the entire PS2 era, and on PC still has fans via an active modding community to this day. There is of course also the original one but the second one pretty much completely overshadowed it.

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)''': The one by EA. You've probably heard everything important. An absolute mess at launch due to its lootbox-heavy progression system, so much so that it started discussion even on government level about lootboxes that continues to this day. A comment by EA that became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Yet despite all this, two years later, the game is arguably one of the best Star Wars experiences one can have and an Anakin-level redemption story. Like the previous Battlefront II, it completely overshadowed its predecessor.

* '''Jedi: Fallen Order''': It took them years but finally, EA managed to deliver a Star Wars game that is great on launch without cramming it with e-transactions. Its plot focuses on an unfortunate Jedi renegade between ''Revenge'' and ''A New Hope'' who's on the hunt for a hidden database that might document all the Force-sensitive individuals in the galaxy. A game inspired primarily by games such as Dark Souls and Uncharted, its a great action-adventure game in its own right and a must-play for any Star Wars fan.

* '''Monopoly Star Wars''': Its Star Wars Monopoly. With 90's FMV that plays for every square you land on. On floppy disks. Considered fucking amazing at the time, its too strange and tabletop to not mention. Also one of the last pre-Prequel things released.

* '''Super Star Wars''': A heavily modified retelling of the original trilogy (what, you don't remember how Luke chased down the Sandcrawler and murdered all the Jawas as well as their giant rat god in order to rescue R2-D2?) that was one of the ways to say "hard as fuck" by namedropping a game prior to Dark Souls existing. Amusing for the insanity of the added content in order to make a platformer sidescrolling beat'em'up as well as how neckbeardy you have to be to punish yourself trying to beat it without cheating.

* '''Star Wars: Yoda Stories''': A game geared for kids, released the same year as Monopoly above. Players play as Luke sometime after Empire Strikes Back, although an odd alternate version where Han sometimes is free from carbonite and Boba Fett and sometimes is not. They are assigned a quest by Yoda which requires them to traverse one or more procedurally generated planets doing whatever odd crap Yoda felt was necessary, including sometimes fighting Vader. Recieved middling scores as a PC release, with some individuals HATING the game and using it as a benchmark for how much they hate something when comparing the two, although to be fair that is because distributors tried to sell it like a full game when in reality its supposed to just be freebie software that came with other purchases and was meant to go with Solitaire and space pinball as default games on a computer to waste time with. It has lapsed into obscurity thanks to even those reviewers largely being forgotten on the modern internet. Noteworthy for being played on a grid with simultaneous turn-based movement with all enemies and NPCs on a screen, feeling very much like a tabletop game at times. A simple puzzle game, where getting blocked in a corner without enough space to pass the time by an idiot NPC is more dangerous than any foe.

*'''Shadows of the Empire''': Made on the Nintendo 64 and Windows PC, you play as Dash Rendar, a scoundrel in a ship like Han Solo working for the Rebellion. Takes place during Episode V as a side story. Despite being much beloved by fans for years and years, it's sadly not aged well thanks to the rather peculiar control scheme of the N64 and the graphics not having aged like cheap cheese in the sun. Main enemy of the game is a xeno named Xisor who is just a real uppity crime boss (and apparently a prince). This game has an absolute great opening first part where you're flying in a Snowspeeder on Hoth killing Imperials left and right while trying to use the cables to crash the AT-ATs like in the movie. After that the game begins to kinda just carry on with awkward controls.

==Assorted list of Awesome From Star Wars==
* Fucking ''[[Lightsaber|Lightsabers!]]''
* The fucking [[Approved music|OST]]
* What is likely the greatest duel in cinematic history, that takes place on a [[Death World|lava planet.]]
* Deathly Stormtroopers, heroic Clonetroopers or sinister First Order troopers; whatever they're called, stormtroopers are awesome!
* Darth Vader whenever he gets a speaking line or to murder rebel scum - that is to say, all the time.
* Darth Maul in both The Phantom Menace and TCW.
* Lightsaber Rifles
* The entirety of the Umbara campaign, where <s>Imperial Guardsmen</s> Clone Troopers die in the dozens attempting to win some godforsaken planet, earning them balls of titanium that make the guard look ba- {{BLAM| '''*BLAM*''' Heresy!}}
* 97% of the Creatures.
* 98% of the Starfighter designs.
* Costumes that mix about every possible inspiration, Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese, Ancient Greece and Rome, Elizabethan, Moebius or Pulp Sci-Fi from the 60's, giving the whole series a distinctive style and gives Padme Amidala an excuse to show off with all her dresses.
* Boba and Jango Fett and the rest of the Mandalorians.
* KOTOR (both games) plot making you think this shit is actually logical and has so much philosophical background. One of the creepiest depictions of the Universe. Everything is brutal, with big vibrating knives, blood, those machines for Sith snuff movies, more blood, bastards, badass bastards and so on. Everything while somebody is talking with you about existence.
* Our saviour Lord Revan. He's like if [[Horus|fucking Horus]] just became [[Big Bad Evil Guy|fucking bad]] (but not that [[Erebus|bad]]) to fucking destroy the [[Chaos Gods|Dark Gods]] so he can solve his daddy issues.
**but he's more virile, deadly, powerful, charismatic and cool.
* Lightsabers.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi.
* The High Ground.
* TIE fighters. They have the most distinctive scream of any fighter in cinematic history that just yells "I'm evil!". Tell me I'm wrong. I'll wait.
** The fact that they managed to do that using what is essentially a shitty visual pun.
* Most of Episode 3.
* The entirety of Anakin's story, especially when you add the Clone Wars and prequels. While you're at it, watch CinemaWins' perspective on it the series.
* Admiral Ackbar the Memeable!
* Palpatine getting into some Tzeentchian-level scheming and backstabbing in order to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic.
* Grand Admiral Thrawn: So awesome that he rose to a high rank in the anthropocentric Empire despite being an alien and was one of the first (and rare few) things to be imported straight from Legends to Disney.
* Imperial Pilots get a mention, seeing as they fly literal garbage fighters against superior rebel fighters. By garbage, we mean that even the Imperium have better fighter designs than these guys. At least Imperial fighters conserve the life of the fucking pilot.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi again.
* Princess, later Senator Leia Organa; the original badass-yet-hot boss lady in space. Ends up leading two separate, successful underground freedom movements against impossible odds. Did we mention she's a Jedi in both canons?
* Han Solo, who is so badass that hot Leia falls in love. He has the smuggler's best friend, a Wookie, who is also the worst opponent you can face in a [[Chess|Dejarik match]].
* Just... Star Destroyers. When you see a huge, imposing warship from an evil Empire, this is the granddaddy they all look up to.
* Oh, did we mention the lightsabers ?

== See Also: ==
* ''[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/ Darths & Droids]'': A webcomic, made using photo-stills of the ''Star Wars'' movies to tell a story about gamers blundering through each of the six movies in sequence... though not quite exactly how you might expect. Think ''DM of the Rings'' in overall visual style, though unlike ''DM of the Rings'', ''Darths & Droids'' features several heavy twists on the actual events of the films, subplots about the players and their lives outside the game alongside the campaign, and a better overall quality of gamer.
* "[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html/ Endor Holocaust]": An excellent example of the [[skub]] Star Wars can create. Rebuttal: "[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/fanart/endortruth20040810.pdf Endor Rebuttal]"
*[[Timothy Zahn]]
*[[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]]
*[[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*[[Star Wars:Resistance]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

Lumineth Realm-Lords

2020-03-14T13:25:07Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* Gallery */

[[File:Lumineth Realm Lords.PNG|thumb|500px|right|Bit of a goofy name, but certainly beats the hell out of 'Pointy Aelves"]]
{{Topquote|The phoenix must burn to emerge.|Janet Fitch}}
{{Topquote|Have you heard of the High Elves?|Oblivion youtube video}}
The High Elves are back, baby! And they're even pointier than before! The new faction in [[Warhammer: Age of Sigmar]] residing in the Realm of Hysh and lead by Teclis. With a heavy Greek aesthetic, new model and the return of [[Eltharion]], good times are abound if you were a fan of the High Elves back in the world that was.

==Origins==
Once upon a time, [[Teclis]], [[Tyrion]], and [[Malekith|Malerion]] found a previously assumed dead [[Morathi]] who was very much alive, who then led the odd trio to the morbidly obese [[Slaanesh]] in a cave where they beat the shit out of him until he coughed up all of the Elven souls he had consumed after [[The End Times]]. A good chunk of these souls were given to Teclis, in order to recreate the High Elves of old and bring their race back to their former glory. The initial race that came from Teclis's attempts were the [[Idoneth Deepkin]] and, well... [[FAIL|He tried]].

This new batch of Aelves seem to have come out of the oven much better, and he was even able to bring Eltharion's spirit back as a hollow piece of armor powered by light. No word yet on what the Idoneth think of them, or vice versa. The first thing to know about these aleves is that they dedicate themselves to one of the two gods, being split into the martial Tyrionic warriors and the sagely Teclian mages. These aelves also learned to bond with the environment of Hysh itself, from its skies to its rivers and mountains. This led to the Lumineth to devise a second caste system, though its particulars aren't well known yet beyond the use of representative runes. These Lumineth have also come to treasure Aetherquartz, a crystal mineral native to their realm. These crystals gave their wearers great knowledge and power, but it also involves [[Eldar|sucking out their emotions and personalities - a sacrifice they consider worthwhile since unfettered emotions are the Dark Prince's favorite snack]]. In this way, they're similar to [[Stormcast Eternals|Sigmar's golden bois]] in that they're constantly approaching that point where they become effectively automatons except these guys see it as an acceptable ending compared to the Stormcast's mad search to end the flaw.

In terms of combat strategies and tactics, their design and combat is heavily reminiscent of Ancient Greek warfare combined with a bit of Roman. The traditional Spearmen, called The Vanari Auralan Wardens, are essentially hoplites, who form phalanxes to hold the enemy in place while the archers, mages and cavalry get set up to do their stuff. Each of these phalanxes are lead by a High Warden, essentially a Centurion, who stands at the rear to make sure shit isn't going wrong. Most of these hoplites also adorn their shields with runes. These runes represent learning and enlightenment for the Realm Lords, but seem to be more for decoration than serving an actual battlefield purpose.

More lore will come out as they approach their official release, but up until the World that Was comes back, this appears to be the closest thing to the [[High Elves (Warhammer)|High Elves]] old fans will be getting for this setting.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Aelve Spearmen.jpg|AELVES, WHAT IS YOUR PROFESSION!?
File:Aelve Cav.jpg|Gee, I wonder what ancient civilization these guys where based on.
File:Eltharion AOS.jpg|YOU COULDN'T GIVE ME A PROPER BODY, TECLIS?!
File:Befriending furries.jpg|I'm back bitches!
File:Realm Lord Runes.jpg|No one tell the Dwarfs that the Elgi figured out how runes work....
File:Sitting Bull.jpg|An Alarith Stonemage. With stone magic that can make rocks float.
File:Sad Lady.jpg|Sad elf lady (Probably River Caste related)
</gallery>

[[Category:Age of Sigmar]]
[[Category:Games Workshop]]

Star Wars

2020-03-13T23:10:15Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* The Books */

{{Star Wars}}
[[File:Star-Wars-Logo (1).jpg|center|500px|]]

{{Topquote|A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....|Star Wars opening text}}
'''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D0ZQPqeJkk/ Star Wars]''' is one of, if not ''the'', most influential media franchises of modern times, let alone its effect on science-fiction and fantasy. Indeed, among [[/tg/|nerddom]], it is challenged by only a few others, like [[Star Trek]] and [[The Lord of the Rings]].

The incredibly ardent fandom is spread worldwide and has a strong presence in popular culture. Many of the characters, like Darth Vader and Yoda, are iconic even to the general public. John Williams' score for the original trilogy is probably the best-known film score of all time. The universe has spawned numerous video games, hundreds of novels, multiple TV shows, one of the largest merchandising franchises ever, and, relevant to /tg/, a whole bunch of board, card, and roleplaying games.

It is also the current leading world source of [[Skub]].

==The Basic Concept==
Star Wars was originally a series of epic science-fantasy "space operas" that roughly followed the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. They're set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," [Note: this makes the entire series a fairy tale] where a mysterious life force called (reasonably enough) the Force permeates everything. This, in turn, can be wielded by certain people, giving them pseudo-magical abilities; thank the Emperor (no, the other one) there were no Commissars in that universe. Those who use it for good become mystical, selfless warrior monks called Jedi, whereas those who use it for evil are ruthless, self-serving bastards called Sith. However, the Force must always be in balance, so any time the Sith arise to cause imbalance, the Jedi have to pull together and take them out to restore the natural order.

The so-called Original Trilogy (made up of films IV through VI, released from 1977 to 1983) followed a young man named Luke Skywalker who becomes a Jedi and re-balances the Force. Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance is fighting to end the oppressive Galactic Empire, which is secretly led by the Sith. Luke and his Rebel companions eventually defeat the evil Emperor Palpatine, but along the way they discover that his lieutenant, Darth Vader, is actually Luke's father. A financial, critical, popular and cultural H-bomb, these movies are basically the filter through which Generation X perceives the world... for better or worse.

The so-called Prequel Trilogy (made up of films I through III, released from 1999 to 2005) explained how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and how the Galactic Empire was established. This involves a lot of convoluted politicking in the Republic, which is then torn apart in the Clone Wars, where the Republic (with an army of clones led by the Jedi) fights against the Confederacy (with an army of robots led by [[Necrons|General Grievous]] and secretly controlled by the Sith). It was not as well received as the first trilogy, for reasons we'll talk about below.

There's also a so-called Sequel Trilogy (made up of film VII and presumably films VIII and IX), which started in 2015 and picked up the story some three decades after the Emperor's defeat with a new generation of heroes taking on the remains of the evil Empire, which is a group of extremist former Imperials calling themselves the First Order. However, Episode VII aka ''The Force Awakens'', was directed by J.J. Abrams, who's mostly known for the [[skub|skubtastic]] [[Star Trek]] reboot, while Episode VIII was written and directed by Ryan Johnson who was a young director known for plot twists and genre experimentation on a handful of movies and television episodes that openly said he wanted to "subvert expectations" and make half of viewers dislike his work, then got pissed when half of them disliked his work. The result managed to fracture the Star Wars fanbase over issues of dull rehashing for VII and a whole laundry list of reasons for VIII (ranging from small ones such as it being too different, to major issues like half the movie being filler), as well as those who still enjoyed them and very little common ground between the three groups.

Finally, there are the so-called Anthology movies, standalone one-shots involving characters and plotlines that aren't a part of the main "Saga" films, except they kind of are. The first, Rogue One (2016), is an immediate prequel to Episode IV that follows those Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans. The second film follows a young Han Solo and pals Chewie and Lando. A third rumored one follows Boba Fett.

There are also three separate TV series. The first one, ''Clone Wars'', was based on traditional animation, whereas the later one, '''''The''' Clone Wars'', was a weird 3D animation. They're both pretty good. There was also a terrible theatrical release that was basically just an advertisement for ''The Clone Wars'', but, since it's even worse than the Prequel Trilogy (hint: babysitting Jabba the Hutt's kid), nobody talks about it much. The third series is Disney's ''"Rebels"'' which is set between Episodes III-IV and it takes itself far less seriously than Clone Wars did, and is more of a homage to the original trilogy since not every character in the series is the owner of a lightsaber nor are they constantly talking about grown-up politics, senators and trade embargoes... pretty much the things that clogged up the plot of the prequel trilogy.

And then there's the whole Expanded Universe, which covers pretty much everything not covered by the films, like the Old Republic (set thousands of years before the prequel trilogy, when there were a hell of a lot more Sith and Jedi around) and the New Republic (set immediately after the original trilogy, explaining what became of all the characters. It could also reach 40k levels of grimdark with races like the [[Dark Eldar|Yuuzhan]] [[Tyranids|Vong]] characters like [[Vampire|Darth Nihilus]] and beings like [[Old Ones|Abeloth]].

The EU is no longer considered in the main canon of the films and TV series, due to the new sequel trilogy which does not follow EU, the reason for this being, according to Disney, that following EU would restrict their creative freedom. The reaction to this was, well, [[skub|mixed, for lack of a better word.]] They've since noted that they'll slot ''some'' of it in on a case-by-case basis, but the canon is in a highly fluid state at the moment. EU is now officially called Star Wars Legends, though most fans still refer to it as EU.

==Why is it so popular?==

Star Wars is as accessible as science fiction gets. It doesn't require extensive knowledge of a fictional world (a la ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' or ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'') or cultural background (as ''[[Star Trek]]'' sometimes does) to make sense. Those elements are present for those who want them, but they largely stay in the (very rich and vibrant) background. It has well-shot action and good ''enough'' dialogue to make it interesting for both kids and adults (as well as allowing parents who grew up with it to watch it with their children, thereby hooking the next generation of viewers). It has simple, good-vs.-evil themes that resonate with almost anyone, anywhere, at any time. The science fiction elements are generally handled well if you don't obsess over making science fiction realistic and hard. It's a prime gateway drug for sci-fi which still holds up to the experienced eye, [[Isaac Asimov]] saw and rather enjoyed the films. All in Fourteen hours of cinema, plus optional sides for those who want it.

There's a ton of merchandise that is, of course, really cool. Also, given it's crossed over into the mainstream, many people feel comfortable being part of the community without feeling judged as "nerds" (as they might with ''Lord of the Rings'', ''D&D'', ''Star Trek'', ''Warhammer'', etc.).

Again, they roughly follow the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. If you think about it, 6 of the 9 films can be summarized as: hero begins his journey under the tutelage of a wise (more or less) man, they encounter a threat which has captured/enslaved a princess/girl, who was in one way or another connected to an important secret (usually a superweapon but could be the identity of a political figure or the location of someone); the heroes save the princess/girl but someone dies tragically in a battle against the villain while someone else is blowing up a space station or a spaceship afterwards they are happy, they celebrate and mourn the loss of the poor bloke who died.

Additionally, the first film can be summarized as a samurai and a gunslinger team up to save a princess from Nazis in space. That is multiple cinematic genres at once, following the style of the epic myth.

==Setting==
Due to article bloat, [[Star Wars Setting]] is now its own page.

==The rise of the original trilogy==

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away....etc etc you all know the lines.

A man called George Lucas had the idea to create a series of epic sci-fi space operas that would become so successful that Disney would take notice and give it the franchise fluttering eye lashes, trying to seduce it.

They would be called... ''Flash Gordon''.

Unfortunately for Georgie boy, and fortunately for modern nerddom, Dino de Laurentiis already owned ''Flash Gordon'', and were busy making their own, hilariously eighties version, so he said, screw it, I'll make my own!

He decided to start with the fourth movie in the series he envisioned, for at the time he didn't have the special effects to create the first three to the standard he wanted, and/or he just kinda made up the first movie as he went along (drawing heavily on Akira Kurosawa's seminal samurai action film, ''Hidden Fortress'' in the process as well as the book [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces''], a complex 1949 Joseph Campbell analysis of the various mythologies of human history all boiled down into the basic archtypes and elements required in heroic myth). So Episode Four ''A New Hope'' was created (simply titled ''Star Wars'' at the time) and it is not an exaggeration to say it changed the face of sci-fi and general moviemaking forever, bringing a new era of special effects and imagination to cinema and changing the lives of many who would go onto to become dedicated fan boys.

Originally, the studio had forced Lucas to take ever-increasing paycuts for what they were sure was going to be a flop, and only let him keep merchandising rights. However, whatever his flaws, George Lucas was a man of vision. Having helped pioneer the summer blockbuster, he went on to do the same to ginormous piles of movie-tie-in memorabilia. His production company, Lucasfilm ended up rolling in dosh, and with Episode Five ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and Episode Six ''The Return of the Jedi'', the legend of Star Wars and its place in cultural history was assured.

tl;dr: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4w7ChpuaM Pretty much this.]

==The coming of the prequel trilogy==
With the year 2000 coming, George Lucas felt that special effects technology had reached the level he wanted and began to create the first three movies in the star wars story he had envisioned. (As a side-note, he also made some touch-ups to the three original films, re-mastering them with special effects and a couple of extra scenes that weren't doable with the eighties' animatronics. But those were mostly accepted/shrugged away since they didn't deeply modify anything.)

The hype for the movies was immense.

And then the first movie, Episode One ''The Phantom Menace'' came out.....and there was nerd rage beyond expectation.

Part of the problem was that the immense expectations of the fandom had grown until anything less-than-perfect simply would not do, so perhaps that is somewhat to blame for the reaction to the prequel trilogy. In a vacuum one has to admit that they aren't completely ''[[Twilight|terrible films]]'' .

Episode Two ''Attack of the Clones'' and Episode Three ''Revenge of the Sith'' followed after a few years each and didn't garner nearly as much hatred, though fans complained they didn't match the greatness of the original trilogy, more concerned with flashy action and effects than competent story-telling; but hooo-boy did it deliver in flashy action, with laser armed [[MI-24 Hind|MI-24's]] full of <s>storm</s>troopers extracting jedi from a coliseum full of shooty killbots.

''Revenge of the Sith'' did, however, receive higher ratings than ''Return of the Jedi'', and is generally seen as the best and most-complete of the three prequel films as a story. Unusually the novelization alters some details and is considered a legitimately good book on its own merits.

What was generally more well received (despite a rocky start with a two hour pilot being pressed into service as a movie and an art style that took some time to gel) during this time for Star Wars was the Clone Wars animated series (both the traditionally-animated ''Clone Wars'' and the later seasons of the CGI show '''''The''' Clone Wars'', the latter which most everyone agrees is what the prequels should have been), following the war between the Republic and the Confederacy that sprung up during the time between the second and third of the prequels.

It'd be ''really'' hard to find a group of movies more skubtastic than the prequel trilogy, and saying a good or bad thing about it in front of the wrong crowd's sure to provoke huge amounts of nerdrage. In defense of the prequel trilogy's sins, they did at least do their own thing. Because of how much money the original trilogy made, practically every form of media in the 80s and 90s aped it to some form or another, and instead of falling back on the same old shit the prequels branched out and tried to get out of the franchise's comfort zone a bit. While a lot of it sucked, it blazed a trail for better writers to follow and helped liven up the universe by showing us the galaxy beyond fuckhueg spaceships and faux-Western shitholes like Tatooine. And all but the most [[Neckbeard|diehard OT purists]] can get behind shit like Naboo architecture, the Clone Army and Mace "The Ace" Windu. From a story perspective the worst sin of the prequels was demystifying the force, and subsequent works have largely swept that detail under the carpet.

==Disney and the sequel trilogy==

Finally, all the efforts by Disney to woo George Lucas paid off and in 2012 Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise for 4 billion dollars and immediately announced they would produce a new trilogy of films set after the original trilogy.

Expectations were almost as high as the private fears of the fans. Bringing on the creative talent behind the [[skub|skubtastic]] ''[[Star Trek]]'' reboot was equally... well, [[skub|take a wild guess]].

For sake of sanity, these section have been condensed. Read at your own peril.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 7: The Mouse Awakens===
''Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens'' debuted in December of 2015, and reception was what you would expect: the film was immediately a massive success from a monetary standpoint as everyone ([[China|almost]]) everywhere rushed to the theaters in response to the hype, with children engaging in as many repeat viewings as their parent's money could allow as fans did the same thing with their own. It has become a financial hit with the general public and a (critically) generally well-reviewed piece, with decent cinematography, special effects, technical stuff, etc. It also went on to become the third biggest financial success in film history (at the time), when not adjusted for inflation.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Fan response was a good deal more mixed. Many criticize the plot for rehashing Episode IV, without doing anything to establish its own identity and claim that it had a bland main character, [[Mary Sue|who had too many abilities]] whereas others find the replication of ''Star Wars'' feel an acceptable trade and praise it for being a decent action film, [[skub|and claim the lead doesn't outdo any of the previous main characters]].

Some would argue that by rehashing the original trilogy it basically nullified the accomplishments of the original crew; the Empire's still around, they've got yet another superweapon, Han & Leia split up, Luke failed to rebuild the Jedi, etc. Other fans praised it simply for being a new Star Wars that was better than the prequel trilogy (expectations were lowered due to those, to be honest). Some see poor storytelling when there was no proper showing of what went on in the galaxy 3 decades since Palpatine died, and not explaining what caused big character changes like why Han returned to his old ways or Luke ran from his friends was critical. Other say this is going to be explained in the next film and people should keep their curiosity. Some argue even with their superweapon, none of the villains feel threatening. Others argue the incompetence of the main villain is a fresh change and the point of the plot will be to see him change, to be more competent, or even learn to become good.

Overall, those against argued JJ Abrams' mystery box approach may do well for a TV series but does not mesh with films that take years to make. Defendants held the position that fans should wait to see whether the next film will do anything with the unexplained plot points.

Coincidentally, when Hamill and Fisher were originally approached by Disney to reprise their roles as Luke and Leia, they ''didn't want to do it'' right from the start. But, they didn't want to give an out-and-out "no" answer either, so they told Disney they'd return if Harrison Ford agreed to return as Han Solo as well. Knowing how much Ford ''hated'' Solo, Hamill and Fisher figured they were safe, until Disney irresistibly sweetened the deal for Ford by agreeing to kill off his character, thus forcing a reluctant Hamill and Fisher to make good on their deal... [[skub|only for the three characters to never appear on the screen at the same time.]] To be fair, Hamill has a history of saying he won’t do something only to immediately agree like he’s making a standard sitcom gag in real life, even if that usually just applies to still voicing the Joker in Batman media.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars Rebels===
Disney also released their own CGI series: ''Star Wars: Rebels'', which is actually pretty ok (considering that it airs on Disney XD, it should be no surprise that they've toned down the graphic depictions of gratuitous violence, much to the chagrin of [[Neckbeards|those who love overly gory deaths]]). It focuses less on the Jedi that have come to dominate the franchise and more on the "boots on the ground" experience of the average characters, and while the show started slow and small, the plot gained momentum as the series progressed, especially after the first season.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Rebel movement starts to grow, several characters return from ''The Clone Wars'', and the enemies the main characters have to face steadily get darker and more dangerous as more of the Empire’s attention gets attracted. When Darth Vader gets involved (played by none other than [[Awesome|James Earl Jones himself]]) he immediately proceeds to [[Awesome|open a 24-pack of unstoppable whoop-ass on the rebel scum]]. The return of Maul resulted in three character deaths (possibly four), the crippling of one main character with another well on his way down the dark side, and to top it all off Maul himself was on the loose once again. Things did not turn out so well [[Grimdark|last time that happened]], so expect the body count to rise, especially with [[Creed|Grand Admiral Thrawn]] now also coming onto the scene. The show also continues the trend set by ''The Clone Wars'' in making the Force mystical again, though whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how you felt about the <s>bullshit</s> <s>scientific</s> [[Skub|skubtastic]] midichlorian explanation of the Prequels. The animation is on point with ''The Clone Wars'', which considering it's Disney should surprise less than nobody. Oh, and Steve Blum voices one of the main characters. However, it is also noted that Star Wars Rebels may indeed have [[Grimdark|dark ending]]. Which, to a degree, it did. An important character dies, and his padawan flees into the unknown regions, leaving us with two other characters to go look for him after the second Death Star blows up.

[[Skub|The way that Filoni (the creator of Rebels and The Clone Wars) has handled the Mandalorians, a fan-favorite warrior-culture based upon the Scots and Vikings, has either been met with praise from those who despised Traviss and her overpowering of said culture, or utter RAGE that he turned many of them into either pacifist morons or bloodthirsty barbarians- usually that particular criticism comes from the Traviss fanboys]]. Do take note, however, that the old ways for the Mandalorians are making their way back into canon, such as the language, the emphasis on martial honor, and the decentralized nature of their government.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars: Rogue One===
December of 2016 brought us the first standalone Star Wars movie, "Rogue One", showing the theft of the original Death Star plans.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

While "Rogue One" can be justly criticized for lacking in character development, that was basically mandated by being set just before another movie whose actors were now 40 years too old to reprise their previous roles. The cast of the movie includes almost no one who appears in Episode IV, and the few familiar faces who do appear show up as cameos. (Fair warning: spoilers)

Accordingly, every main character dies by the end. It still manages to pack quite a lot of [[awesome]] into the movie, with Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk and Darth Vader all used to great effect. Rogue One also answers several questions, plugs several plot holes, and just generally makes A New Hope make a lot more sense in retrospect. (No wonder Vader wasn't impressed when Leia claimed to be on a "diplomatic mission.") It also has the distinctions of being the only Star Wars movie to focus on regular soldiers instead of Jedi, and being more like the original Star Wars than any of the sequels, including the other two of the main trilogy. (The original, back before it was "A New Hope", was a genre mashup of samurai + gunslinger rescue princess from space Nazis, then team up for a World War II dogfight. This one is wuxia cast + heist crew do a heist in a WWII trench warfare war zone. There's surprisingly little 'War' in Star Wars.) Much, much [[Skub]] still exists of course, since no Star Wars movie will ever please all the neckbeards but out of the five post-Disney Star Wars movies released so far, this one is definitely the least divisive and arguably the best of the bunch.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===Episode 8: The Last Royalty Check (aka zomg Luke dies!)===
On December 14 2017, ''Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi'' was released world wide. The critical reception was [[Bullshit|extremely positive]], with many critics considering it the best movie in the series since The Empire Strikes Back. The fan reception has been a great deal more negative and [[Skub|mixed]], and a number of fans are convinced that Disney leaned on media outlets to shill the new movie or else. If you have watched the Empire Strikes Back, you ''WILL'' be [[Rage|disappointed at best]], if you want to see a Star Wars film that would finally expand the characters of Kylo Ren and Rey, you ''WILL'' be satisfied and disappointed at the same time, if you want to watch the film because it is the last film starring the great and wonderful Carrie Fisher, you ''WILL'' feel hollow and sad inside, and if you came to see a pair of lightsaber-wielding punks involved in one of the [[Skub|greatest or worst lightsaber battles of the franchise, you ''WILL'' be pleased or horribly disappointed]]. The Last Jedi is seen as one of the most divisive films in the franchise by the fandom, [[FAIL|which is one hell of an achievement]] considering other films.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The complaints about The Last Jedi are many: the treatment of Luke (which even his actor, Mark Hamill, hated, to the point that he has no interest in playing Luke again), Leia's Superman asspull, Finn's plot arc that serves practically zero purpose and has him undergo the same character arc as the last movie, the forced humor, the complete disregard for established [[fluff]], disregard for even the most basic laws of physics, the fact that the central conflict is essentially the same as the one in the originals right down to the last stand ripped straight out of ''Empire'', the PC bullshit (a hipster admiral who the plot always treats as being in the right despite killing 90% of the Resistance, the Gilded Age planet arc that [[Namek|sucks up a third of the movie to no benefit,]] Rose expressing her desire to get BLACKED with a horrendous and forced #LoveTrumpsHate one-liner in the final act) added solely to virtue-signal and the whole thing being basically a 2,5h screed against the franchise it belongs to and the culture which spawned it.

Fans have also criticized the movie for dropping or discarding major plot points from TFA and repeatedly invoking Shamalamadingdong-tier plot twists for cheap gotchas that are somehow less interesting than the recycled cliches they play off of. Director Rian Johnson has responded by shitting on said critics and trying to defend the film on social media like something out of an ED or RW article. (Important note: George Lucas never tried to defend the prequels, despite the huge backlash at the time, and he agreed with fans that [[C.S Goto|The Star Wars Holiday Special]] was an abomination.) It later came out that Johnson had not been given any kind of roadmap beyond Lucas' old and unfinished concept scripts and was not allowed to see what Abrams had done until TLJ was too far into production to write in most of the previous movie's plot points, which makes the fail Disney's fault just as much as it is Johnson's. Except we also know that he had at least a modicum of influence over the ending of TFA, so they must have talked on at least some degree. As with TFA Lucasfilm has tried to paper over the holes with tie-in material, and just like TFA the fans recognize the damage control.

The Last Jedi has without a doubt torn the fanbase apart in ways even the prequels didn't come close to, with many fans declaring that they have dropped the sequel trilogy. Even Star Wars' famous merchandising has taken a mauling, as [[/toy/]] giggles at Rose Tico and General Hux figures warming shelves while new product shipments go straight from the transport case to the clearance bin.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg_FoEy8T_A I'm Solo, Han Solo, Han Solo]===
On May 25th 2018, the 41st anniversary of the franchise, ''Solo: A Star Wars Story'' was released. The general consensus seems to be that it is the most average film in the series. At the very least, most people agree that it is at least better than The Last Jedi (if barely) and the backlash from that movie can be felt even in Solo: many fans have chosen to boycott the movie. Even before release, many fans had derided the whole affair as unnecessary: no one was really asking for a Han Solo origin movie, particularly one without Harrison Ford. Han Solo's entire life history had already been explored thoroughly in EU novels and comics, so the movie could only be a retread or a retcon, both things most fanbases tend to disapprove of.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Whether it is because of this boycott or not, [[Not as planned|something no one expected happened:]] ''Solo'' was a box office bomb. Its opening weekend performed way below expectations and as of this writing, it has only made half of the money it needs for it to break even. Disney still continued to labor under the delusion that China would save their bottom line regardless of the fact that Star Wars has never been popular in China.

So what is it like? Well, rather than being a space opera like the other films, this is a space Western. Rather than being about large-scale battles and saving the galaxy from tyranny, it's about heists and the galactic underworld. (Except for the Mimban sequence, which you'd swear was lifted from a live-action Imperial Guard movie.) It's essentially Disney's reboot/retcon of the old EU Han Solo novels, taking things that were mentioned offhand in the original trilogy (like how Han did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs) and making that the subject of an entire movie. The film was perhaps cursed from the beginning due to its [[Fail|troubled production.]] How troubled? The lead needed an acting coach to get through his shoots (Han may have walked away with the Falcon, but Danny Glover's Lando stole the spotlight every time) and 70% of the movie had to be reshot by a different director due to [[Butthurt|creative differences]] between Lucasfilm and the original directors.

The fail only compounded when it premiered and fans got to see what those "creative differences" may have wrought: the writing staff started spewing bullshit to the press about Lando being "pansexual" with no precedent in any Star Wars production including ''Solo'', the film's tone is a schizophrenic nightmare to the last-minute reshoots and Han's sidekick for most of the movie is [[What|a self-built female droid social justice warrior]] named [[/v/|L3-37]]. Audiences ''cheered and applauded'' when that <s>man</s>human-hating self-insert character finally fucking died. Perhaps the most damning sin is that these are the movie's only notable qualities: take them away and you're left with a movie that would make you think "Huh, that was okay," and then never think about it again for the rest of your life, were it not for the crippling disappointment of seeing one of the most beloved franchises in the world fall so far. Between the boycotts, the mediocrity of the movie itself, and [https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Gawker certain news outlets] claiming that the driving force behind said boycotts was [[/pol/]], ''Solo'' cratered so badly that [[Exterminatus|all non-''Episode 9'' Star Wars movies were for a short time shelved indefinitely, and the only side-movie still being worked on is the obligatory Boba Fett origin movie, which is more likely to sell tickets based on the name alone.]] Incidentally, one of the writers picked by Lucasfilm to handle ''Solo'''s tie-in content, Cavan Scott, has been hired by [[Games Workshop]] for the [[Warhammer Adventures]] series.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker (aka Plan Palpa-Nine from Outer Space)===
Your opinion of this movie is very easy to predict based on what you thought of the others; if you found The Last Jedi to be "refreshing", you'll absolutely HATE this one. If you hate all Disney content aside from ''maybe'' The Mandalorian, you'll hate this one as much as the others. If you absolutely detested The Last Jedi but have mixed opinions of the rest, you'll probably consider this to be the best of the new movies to varying degrees of actual enthusiasm. The movie largely undoes or ignores swathes of the previous one.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

After finishing shooting, the film was shown to test audiences (which JJ Abrams lied never happened). The film was extremely poorly received, one of many reasons being because it had [[Mary Sue|Rey curb-stomping Palpatine by herself in the final battle]] (test audiences reportedly either laughing at the film or had to be stopped from walking out of the test screenings). The poor showing made (then) Disney CEO Bob Iger - who was overseeing the screening - furious, and he immediately ordered the film to be reshot. The resulting reshoots were so extensive, [http://archive.ph/RLj94 they spanned months and the film didn't have a final edit till December 2019, the month of release], causing trailers to be so desperate for footage that wouldn't be cut they had to fill half the length with footage from prior films and stuff used in prior trailers. Further complicating matters was that the ''very stupid'' plot was leaked months before release. Despite extensive denials from Disney and media outlets, the leaks were proven correct by getting then unrevealed names and plot objects right. Camera leaks the week before release showed very little of the fantastically stupid content leaked months beforehand was changed, only minor details.

Before reading on, be aware that Rey and Kylo are no longer movie-type Force users, they have been changed to video game characters. Like KOTOR and Jedi Academy type where you just get powers by killing enough dudes. None of the powers are new to the franchise, but have been rarely seen and in some cases never before have in movies. You should also know that unlike the first Visual Dictionary that mostly just gave little prop trivia and plot hooks for other works, and the second which was mostly irrelevant until it gets referenced in a decade or two, the final Visual Dictionary is damn near required reading (this shit will get a "VD" to indicate it) since a lot of explanations were cut in the reshoots and recuts. Like for example the connection between Rey and Kylo is a "Force Dyad", basically one soul in the Force that inhabits two bodies (setting up a bit of a snarl what happens when one dies and not the other, and implying the personality is mostly in the brain which is why they can have unique experiences, but whatever) and warps space/time. This is why Rey was inexplicably powerful and knew how to do shit instinctively, because Kylo's training passed onto her, and likewise her nonstop playing with X-Wing training sims as a child made him a badass pilot. Dyads used to be far more common in the KOTOR era, and were apparently the inspiration for the Sith Rule Of Two. This is never mentioned in the final cut of the film, but leaks show it was in one of the earlier ones.

The movie pressed on with breakneck speed that doesn't have time for musical interludes or wipe transitions, the opening crawl informing you that Palpatine has somehow returned and sent a message to the galaxy with the Resistance trying to rebuild and gather information, Rey being trained by Leia on the planet Ajan Kloss (AKA not!Yavin #2, VD) after repairing Anakin's lightsaber (VD) who had received partial training from Luke before stopping for reasons explained later in the movie and supplementing the rest with her pouring over the Jedi texts, and Kylo Ren trying to find Palpatine because his existence is a threat to his rule. The movie takes a lot of inspiration from KOTOR era lore with Ren finding a Sith McGuffin Holocron-type navigation device on Mustafar (VD) showing him the secret planet of the Sith (not Korriban/Pesegam/Moraband, this one is a planet in a red nebula that is under constant lightning storms called Exegol). There he finds a MASSIVE Sith cult that has kept itself secret and managed to not only build a fucking massive fleet of Star Destroyers equipped with planetkiller guns like something straight out of the old canon, but divisions of Stormtroopers, technicians, and officers to fill them along with the typical cultists in robes who administer to keeping Palpatine alive and seeing to his Sith alchemy shit...which includes tanks containing multiple clones of Snoke, revealing the guy was literally born looking like that with a manufactured backstory all so Palpatine could use him as a puppet to create the First Order (which is almost a meta commentary about the backstory controversy).

Kylo is offered the chance to be the new Emperor by Palpatine, who is a corpse kept barely alive through methods some would consider... Unnatural, while strapped to a machine with [[Lord Kroak|his spirit sticking nearby]] (the filmmakers zig-zagged on the nature of this; first it was the original Palpatine who had somehow duped everyone in ''Return of the Jedi'' with a clone stand in, then the reshoots changed it to the original's zombie-like rotting corpse animated by his lingering spirit and Lucasfilm later retconned him to be a zombie-like clone of Palpatine after the film's release). The only requirement for Palps to pass him Emperorship is killing Rey, although Ren is immediately suspicious of the other strings attached (including choking a guy in a hissyfit when that concern is voiced) and decides instead to recruit Rey again, this time as a co-Emperor.

Finn and Poe obtain information about a spy within the First Order (yeah, you know its fucking Hux even before they say there is a spy at all) while Rey gets visions during her training with Leia. The spy confirms that Palpatine is legit and the info about the fuckmassive deathfleet is legit, and Rey finds the Jedi texts contain notes from Luke about his search for that planet. They go to his last clue, a desert planet that isn't Tatooine and is the middle of a festival where they find Lando has been holed up enjoying himself since him and Luke traveled there. They are immediately spotted by the First Order and escape from them to find the ship of one of Palpatine's servants who had last been seen there. They fall into sinkholes around the ship created by giant tunneling worms, and find the skeleton of Sheev's boy as well as a Sith dagger. 3PO is programmed with the Sith language, but his programming from the Old Republic era forbids him from giving the translation to civilians. Rey manages to get the sand worms to leave them alone by using Force powers to heal one's wound, and they attempt to get the Sheev's servant's ship up and running before they are attacked by the First Order. Chewie is taken prisoner and Rey wrecks Kylo's TIE Fighter before the two engage in a Force tug of war to pull the transport Chewie is on, which ends in Rey accidentally Force Lightning it and causing it to explode when she becomes frustrated with the stalemate. Chewie is revealed to have been on another transport and is taken to Ren's flagship Star Destroyer while the heroes, instead of do something sensible like seek a Rebel leader who can give security clearance for 3PO's protocol (Leia's the obvious choice), they head to a planet under VERY Nazi-like occupation to find a droid technician who can hack 3PO's memory. They encounter a woman from Poe's past, revealing he was a former spice smuggler like Han until abandoning his crew (causing them to fall into debt and become bitter at him) to join the Resistance. She threatens to turn the group in to pay off their debt [[Mary Sue| but Rey kicks her ass, earning her respect and she takes them to the technician without further incident.]] The technician unlocks 3PO's memory at the cost of wiping him. The translation reveals the dagger is the key to finding the Sith navigation McGuffin they are looking for. During this BB-8 reactivates Sheev's servant's old droid, who doesn't do much.

The heroes proceed to board Ren's flagship with the help of a First Order officer's badge, and shoot their way through as they free Chewie. Rey and Ren have another linked vision where her parents are revealed to have attempted to hide her from her grandfather Palpatine, who wanted to merge the souls of himself and '''ALL''' other preceding Sith (presumably not Revan, since his redemption is canon) while he discovers they are on his ship and orders it put on lockdown. Rey is confronted in the hangar by Ren, who offers her to join him again. She refuses and the Falcon appears, the engines blowing away the Stormtroopers while Rey jumps aboard. The crew head to Endor after finding out from Sheev's servant's old droid that it was where he was going to go next (this is the only thing the droid does other than serve as a "pet the dog moment" for the cast a few times) where the Death Star wreckage of the disk and throne room landed, encountering a division of former child-soldier Stormtroopers like Finn who went AWOL. The dagger has a slide-out metal prong from the handle which perfectly lines up with the corridor leading to Sheev's throne room. The team work on repairing the Falcon while Rey presses on ahead, alone, to the Death Star wreckage. Once in the throne room a hidden door opens, revealing a sanctum full of crystal mirrors that are the same as the ones she saw in her vision in Force Awakens (the scene where she snaps her fingers and all the mirrored ones do as well). There she finds the Sith McGuffin and gets a "The Cave" vision of herself as a Sith with a red double-bladed lightsaber which she fights. Kylo is waiting for her in the throne room, and crushes the Sith McGuffin in his hand before informing her they are linked in the Force as one soul inhabiting two bodies and offering her again to be the Vader to her Palpatine which she again refuses. The two fight while Finn and one of the Stormtroopers try to rescue her. They fight their way onto the remnants of the Death Star hangar, reminiscent of Anakin and Obi-wan in Revenge Of The Sith with water instead of lava, before Ren freezes as he senses his mother start to die. This pause gives Rey time to grab his lightsaber and stab him before she freezes sensing Leia actually pass away. Rey uses the Force to heal him, then steals his TIE Fighter while Poe and Finn return to the Resistance base. Rey initially attempts to hide on Luke's monastery to let Palpatine's bloodline die with her, but after lighting Kylo's TIE on fire (so she's destroyed 2 of his personal TIE at this point) Luke appears as a Force ghost to tell her <strike>Rian Johnson</strike> he was wrong, and was motivated by fear when he tried to hide. He reveals that all the Jedi who came before are rooting for her, and tells her where Leia's lightsaber is hidden. He reveals she stopped her training because in a vision she saw that her son would be destroyed by the Dark Side, and a Light Side counterpart would take up her blade instead. Meanwhile, Kylo is visited by the memory of Han. The two reenact the scene from Force Awakens, only this time Kylo throws his lightsaber into the sea and renounces the name Kylo Ren to become simply Ben again. Meanwhile the First Order blow up Poe's home planet where the droid technician and Poe's old crew were, although they had managed to get offworld by that point. Also, R2-D2 restores C-3PO's memory wipe by finding a backup which contains everything from before the mission.

Luke lifts his X-Wing from the waves and Rey scavenges the Sith McGuffin from the flaming wreck of Kylo's ship. As she proceeds to the Sith planet she sends out a beacon to track her progress, giving the entire galaxy a map to the Sith fleet. Poe, now leader of the Resistance, sends Lando with the Falcon and Nien Nunb to gather any forces they can, all the ones who refused to aid them in The Last Jedi, while the rest of the Resistance gears up to attack Sheev's fleet before they can leave the storm cloud. The initial plan is to destroy the navigation device which orients them to the rest of the galaxy without which the fleet cannot leave, until the commander of the flagship (a former Imperial officer) realizes what they are doing and orders it to be shut down so his own ship could serve as the navigation for the rest. Rey confronts Sheev in a coliseum/throne room full of the Cultist parents of the personnel of the fleet (VD) and is informed of his plan to have her kill him so all the Sith could merge with her and rule as basically the God Emperor of Star Wars. She raises her lightsaber before using the strange wormhole Force connection thing they have to pass it to Ben, who had gotten there with a salvaged TIE from the Death Star wreckage and was being beaten by his former servants, the Knights Of Ren. Armed with Luke's old lightsaber he kills them and proceeds to the throne room. Ben arrives and the two attempt to fight him. He simply Force Pushes them back and forces them to kneel before draining a portion of their souls, the "two bodies one soul" thing apparently being a massive source of Force power he can heal himself with to rule in his own rejuvenated body again (but with Darth Maul eyes) rather than Rey's. Meanwhile, the ex-Stormtroopers and Resistance ground personnel lead by Finn land on the flagship Star Destroyer (its still in the atmosphere of the Sith planet, thus gravity and breathable air applies) and due to bringing goat-horse things from Endor are not affected by onboard EMP that would otherwise short out speeders and tanks (which is a thing from past canon, mostly comics and novels, which they use to explain why such a thing doesn't happen more often). Meanwhile, Lando appears with a fucking enormous fleet (remember the backstory that the New Republic didn't have a fleet, instead paying for every planet to have a militia of their own which would unite when there was a big enough threat? Well, JJ finally remembered because all those fucks show up alongside a neat little game of "spot that ship from the series you know" in a few shots). They begin attacking the superweapons underneath the Star Destroyers directly, causing chain reactions that blow the entire ship.

Ben is Force-pushed by Sheev into a pit as revenge for how Vader did the same thing to him before taunting the dying Rey and unleashing a MASSIVE Force Lightning storm which shorts out the fleet. While this is going on the spirits of all the dead Jedi (like pretty much anyone they could find to record a line from any of the past movies or shows, including Ahsoka; which is pretty lame since it means she was killed off-screen, with natural causes being unlikely since Ahsoka wouldn't have been 80 yet, and even that's below the average Togruta life expectancy, though this may not necessarily be the case according to Filoni) who inhabit her body the same way that Palpatine is currently full of all the Sith. Rey manages to stand and deflects his Force Lightning with Leia's lightsaber, which isn't enough until Ben manages to climb out of the pit and throw her Luke's lightsaber; with the two together she's able to walk close enough to Sheev for his Force Lightning to burn him, and despite this being the third fucking time this has happened he does not turn off the lightning and instead Raiders Of The Lost Ark's himself into a skeleton before blowing up and destroying not only himself but the spirits of all the past Sith. Despite Palpatine's plan being to possess Rey when she kills him, for some reason he doesn't do so. The Jedi spirits leave Rey and she dies, with the barely lingering on Ben healing her. They share a kiss (reminder that since Sheev created Anakin, they're basically cousins, and their relationship is so adversarial it makes Edward and Bella's from Twilight look healthy, something the novelization tries to claim is "purely platonic") before Ben dies. His body vanishes, as does Leia's. The Resistance/Militia fleet destroy all the Star Destroyers after Finn's ground crew hijacks one of the cannons of the flagship to shoot at the ship bridge, killing the last of the old Empire and First Order leadership.

The heroes return to the Resistance planet where they celebrate, scenes showing the rest of the galaxy shooting the last of the First Order Star Destroyers play, Chewie is given Han's old medal from A New Hope, and the ex-Stormtrooper leader is hinted to be Lando's daughter or grandaughter implying a spinoff with the two. After the celebrations Rey returns to Luke's old home on Tatooine where she buries Anakin and Leia's lightsabers, revealing she built her own from her Force vision only with yellow blades instead of red ones. An old woman who was a neighbor of Owen and Beru comments nobody had been to that place in years and asks Rey's name. Seeing the Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia, she tells the woman her name is Rey Skywalker. The End.

Because god knows this fandom can no longer agree on fucking anything anymore, there was immediately fan wars going on everywhere Star Wars fans are found. Fans accused haters of review bombing, those who hated the movie claimed the critic score (which, if you recall, is mostly people who liked The Last Jedi and hate this movie for doing a U-turn on it) vindicates them. The fan fighting probably won't ever end, since now we apparently have to reevaluate if A New Hope and the Kenner Star Wars toys were ever good in the first place because some contrarians now claim the prequels are the pinnacle of Star Wars. Whatever the case, Disney CEO Bog Iger resigned in the middle of the work week in late February 2020, indicating that the backlash and fan alienation had a deeper impact than anticipated.
</div>
</div>

==Expanded Universe==

It can be said what makes a franchise into a long term lasting thing is when a wealth of extra story and background is created that expands on the original story far beyond what there was. It could be argued Star Wars leads the race in this, as the sheer amount of extra novels, graphic novels and games based on Star Wars can and does overwhelm the ordinary fan.

===The original EU/Star Wars "Legends"===

[[Image: Choices_of_One_PB_art.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Before Cara, before Rey, before Ashoka, Nomi Sunrider or Padme... there was Mara Jade]]
The background has expanded into the distant past before the founding of the current Jedi and Sith orders and into the (not-quite-so) far future looking at the descendants of Luke Skywalker and other popular characters. Uniquely, especially considering [[Warhammer 40K|other]] [[Star Trek|franchises']] track records, the Star Wars Expanded Universe is <strike>remarkably</strike> <strike>sorta</strike> sometimes internally consistent, both with other sources within the universe and with the films themselves, at least in comparison to other comparable settings. Of course, it's got plenty of its own [[C. S. Goto|problem children]] that slipped through, and the [[skub]] mine of it all isn't much shallower than that of 40K. Good portions of it do hold up well, largely due to the efforts of Lucas' company's continuity department leaning on everyone to hold it together. One thing that greatly helps is continuity books and articles aren't afraid to make small retcons to make even the most obscure and shitty sources (like that terrible PS1 fighting game) seem like part of an organized plot. Particularly well-loved parts include characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn (a rare alien officer in the Empire and popular enough that Disney brought him back to the canon from the EU) and Mara Jade (a Force-using former agent of Emperor Palpatine who later turned good, became a Jedi Master, married Luke and had a son with him) - interestingly both were created by the same author [[Timothy Zahn]].

Upon their acquisition, Disney said "fuck it" and threw out everything but the films and the Clone Wars cartoons. Some popular old stuff got mentions or appearances (and Thrawn got to be a major character), but the overall quality is even lower than the old EU. What was set up as a major book contains phrases like "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air" and random virtue signalling. As though to top the previous, Disney literally published a book with an entire chapter about mass wedding farts (Yes. Really.). The only good stuff is from established EU authors writing stuff far away from era of the Disney films.

The [[rage]] over the EU's scrapping was major among many fans of it, but for all Disney's shortcomings, they were in a tight spot. Towards the end all that continuity and consistency got thrown out the airlock for increasingly dumb and disjointed narratives and garbled plot threads to the point that the Star Wars logo was just about as much a sign of quality as the Nintendo approval stamp on shitty SNES games.

Another problem was that Disney is mostly family-firendly, and some of the Star Wars EU could get really dark. As in Warhammer 40k levels of grimdark. Examples of this are the invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong - forcenull space-Druchii (no no, not Comorrites though they have the pain and body modification fetishes for it, space-'''Druchii''', riding enslaved tyranid bioships) from another galaxy, Mnggal-Mnggal - mindraping gelatin lost on its way to Star Trek, and Abeloth - an ancient (she predates the Jedi and the Sith) yandere Force entity more like something from the Cthulhu Mythos and is so dangerous the Jedi and the Sith '''joined forces''' to fight her. It's difficult to envision how Disney could have kept the EU when even before all that it was struggling to find a market beyond the most [[neckbeards|dedicated fans]].

===The Books===

'''The Good EU'''
[[Image: Heir-to-the-empire-cover.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Heir to the Empire (1991): The book that started it all]]
* '''The Thrawn Trilogy''': The origination point for the EU, and focuses on the conflict with the Imperial remnants left over after RotJ. Named for the main villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, who went on to become one of Star Wars most well-loved characters. Basically the story "The Force Awakens" wishes it was. Also introduced Mara Jade, a sexy redhead that's everything Disney wishes Rey was and more.
* '''The Han Solo Adventures''': Star's End was the second spinoff book written and the first good one. Han and Chewie are trying to get some work done on the Falcon and wind up having to bust out some political prisoners to pay for it. Would have made for a better film than ''Solo'' did.
* '''Shadows of the Empire''': Shadows is set between ESB and RotJ and fills in the details of getting the Death Star II's plans, finding out where Han was taken, Luke building his own saber, etc by the introduction of another bounty hunter by the name of Dash Rendar. The Special Edition rerelease of ''A New Hope'' added the Outrider to the background of one scene. Most notable for the fact that it was also adapted into a video game for the N64 and PC.
*'''The Darth Bane Trilogy''': The origin of the Rule of Two for the Sith, along with a compelling protagonist and his apprentice.
* '''Revenge of the Sith''': The novelization is actually considered a serious improvement over the movie itself.

'''The Bad EU'''
* '''Jedi Academy Trilogy''': Luke sets up his academy on Yavin IV and tries to teach [[Rage|Kyp Durron]]. Imperial remnant superweapons hit ludicrous territory with the sun crusher. This was the beginning of Kevin J Anderson hammering out a couple dozen Star Wars books over about four years.
* '''Young Jedi Knights Series''': Set between Jedi Academy and New Jedi Order, mostly follows Han & Leia's kids.
* '''I, Jedi''': A retelling of the Jedi Academy Trilogy (see above) with more of Corran Horn from the first set of X-Wing books. Less derp in general but significantly more [[Mary Sue]]age of Horn.
* '''Legacy of the Force''': The survivors of the Yuuzhan Vong War are trying to rebuild the galaxy, but Jacen Solo turns Sith and becomes the main villain. The book series is infamous for nearly killing the Star Wars EU, threatening the franchise and issues between various writers years before Disney went down the same road (Jacen Solo was also a major influence for Kylo Ren). The biggest complaints were Jacen killing Mara, the heroes becoming idiots whenever they could've stopped the villains, poor dialogue, long-winded writing and the story being overstuffed with allusions to post 9/11 United States.

'''The [[Skub]] EU'''
[[Image: Yuuzhan-vong-eu2_bg.jpg|right|200px|thumb|The Yuuzhan Vong, [[Skub|either badass and interesting or edgy and canon-defiling villains]]]]
* '''New Jedi Order''': The longest-running (19 books long) and most divisive story of the EU. Luke's married to Mara and they're rebuilding the Jedi Order while Han and Leia are trying to reconcile the New Republic and Imperial Remnants. Han and Leia are also raising three kids and Mara's got a terminal illness. Then extragalactic aliens called Yuuzhan Vong - [[Imperium of Man|religious fanatics]] with [[Tyranids|organic technology]], a thing for [[Dark Eldar|pain and body modification]] along with [[Culexus|partial immunity to The Force]] - invade to take over the Star Wars Galaxy. Chewie dies Majora's Mask style, Mara's illness is cured and she gives birth to Ben Skywalker, the Vong take over Coruscant, lots is learned about the Force and the bodycount goes so high it could give Warhammer 40k a run for its money (365 TRILLION; only the War in Heaven or the Fall of the Eldar had anywhere near that many deaths in one event). A real love-it-or-hate-it series, some parts were good, some were bad and some were weird.
* '''Dark Empire''': Palpatine's back to save a dying franchise decades before Disney tried it. He even uses clone bodies to do so (but unlike Disney, Dark Horse didn't flip-flop on the lore), wrecks a fleet of enemy ships using the Force and at some point has his power reflected back at him. Starts off good, falls apart fast. Known for its love-it-or-hate-it artstyle and dialogue.
* '''Courtship of Princess Leia''': Deals with another Imperial remnant, where a Queen who could be potential ally against the Imperials offers a deal which hinges on Leia marrying her son. Meanwhile Luke and R2-D2 are working with a prince who was the original recipient of the offer. This one has force witches, who are encountered when Han tricked Leia into in an attempt to win her heart... it is ''really'' silly. If you like that, raise this higher. If not, it might even drop lower.
* '''Fate of the Jedi''': People are growing dissatisfied with the Jedi Order following LotF. Luke, Ben and the remaining Jedi are trying to keep the Jedi Order in check while several Jedi are wracked with a mysterious psychosis and a ancient Sith Tribe emerges from hiding. Han and Leia are looking after the political side of things while also becoming grandparents. Things take a turn for cosmic horror when a yandere, Force-using eldritch abomination who could doom the galaxy escapes her prison. The Sith apprentice Vestara rises through the ranks and finds herself in a Catwoman/Batman situation with Ben Skywalker. While being an OoM better than the preceding trilogy, FotJ has a very divided opinion among SW fans.

=== Disney Canon ===
[[Image:Star_Wars_Disney_Princesses.jpg|right|400px|thumb|Love it or hate it, they are now official ''Disney Princesses''.]]
It's still [[skub|debatable]] whether or not the new Canon holds up to the old EU, or learns to fix the problems that plagued it. We probably won't see what comes of it for decades to come. Disney Canon, as of 2020, seems to largely be built around the nine main movies (of course), with shows like Rebels and Clone Wars alongside anthology movies fleshing out stories that had been told in comics and books back before the Disney buy-up, but can now be seen on film.

A curious thing that has begun happening: Certain elements of the old EU is slipping into the Disney Canon. Plotlines like the Emperor returning, the Death Star plans heist and Han's path to become the smuggler we know him as all have bits and pieces from EU canon in them. In some cases, whole characters are ported in; the best example is Admiral Thrawn, who appears in Rebels. Other times, popular characters has their traits or stories ported into new ones (Finn and Cassian are both expies of Kyle Katarn, for example). This gives some credence to the argument that Lucasfilms and Disney wanted to wipe the slate with all the stories that had been told in the EU, so they could create their own, fully realized canon Star Wars setting that one could make movies - ''many'' movies - from. Considering the amount of shitty fan-fiction-esque stories the EU had, this may be for the best, but of course, storylines that people have loved for ages are also thrown out with the bathwater.

Now. Detractors of Disney-era Star Wars often talk loads about how the sequel trilogy invalidates the original trilogy, or how Disney screwed over Luke or ignored cool characters like Kyle Katarn. These are semi-valid arguments of course, but they ignore some of the biggest issues with the EU originally - it wasn't sponsored by George Lucas and Lucasfilms. They were sponsored fan-fiction in a sense, semi-canon from the outset and not really something that could be considered a part of the Star Wars setting, though George Lucas did work with the writers to a point, such as with the New Jedi Order book series (he gave them permission to kill off Chewbacca in the story). In fact, George never really considered them real stories; more like a parallel universe of his own Star Wars works. He accepted it because they bring in the big bucks when people would beg to have the official Star Wars logo on anything they produced.

That, and the sequel trilogy, underwhelming as it may be, was George's idea in broad strokes. The series was always going to have a sequel trilogy, and while the outcome isn't exactly what he (or we) wanted, quite a lot of it is. Luke being an exile on a far-away planet, who has to be roused to fight by a new, female Jedi? George's idea, not Disney's. A son of Han and Leia struggling with the Dark Side? Also George's idea (though Disney lifted a lot form the original version - Jacen Solo - for Kylo Ren). If anything, much of the direction comes from Lucasfilms; Disney just wants the movie to sell well. It's similar with Marvel nowadays.

So for better or worse, the Disney Canon is the first time the wider setting of Star Wars beyond the series and movies have become irrevocably canon, rather than "kinda-sorta-canon". Much of what we've gotten that is new is based roughly on George's own work as well. Remember this when discussing EU vs Disney in Star Wars - Either setting is cool for their own reasons, but the Mouse got little to do with it - and if you don't like it, bring it up with big man Lucas. Whatever the case, with Bob Iger's resignation as CEO from Disney (likely not on his terms, as he stated multiple times he would retire in 2021), things are changing (for better or worse).

==Star Wars:The Television Shows==
===Star Wars:The Clone Wars===
Technically, there are two series called similar titles. The first was 2004's ''Star Wars: Clone Wars'', an animated miniseries made by Genndy Tartakovsky (He of Dexter's Lab and [[Samurai Jack]] fame) chronicling, among other things, the titular Clone Wars and introducing a much more sinister General Grievous to the world.

But then we have ''The Clone Wars'', a CGI animated series (and tie-in movie) that we'll be talking about more and contributed more to the EU. One of the most universally known and loved parts of Star Wars, most fans worth their action figures and limited edition movie sets have watched the show and have an opinion on it one way or another. Some of the most notable characteristics are:

* The Clone Troopers are fleshed out,and we see that they are manly motherfuckers who make Guardsmen's balls of steel look like the cardboard their armor is made out of (seriously, in the movie, they literally charge straight into close combat with ''giant armored walkers with large guns'' and jump off roofs to get top of them to shoot them point blank, and punch droids in the face)
* Anakin Skywalker is actually a good, fleshed out character, with a good voice actor and shows his descent to child-murdering Force-choking asshat wasn't just him going 'welp, guess I'll fall to the Dark Side.' There was a fair amount of bad-cop “it was him or me” murder to get there.
* Introduces Ashoka Tano, a major character who's a female Togruta Jedi that's well-written, non-OP, non-Mary Sue and doesn't invalidate characters from the movies. Starts off a bit annoying in the Clone Wars movie, but manages to do something truly special: she ''learns''. Over the course of Clone Wars and Rebels, Ashoka probably has the most character development out of any other Star Wars character.
* Obi-Wan being a sexy one-liner spouting sarcastic badass.
* And many others.

However, there were some pretty derp moments too, such as

* Babysitting episode/movie.
* D-squad, where a bunch of droids become heroes of the Republic.
* Mandalore and how it's fluff was basically screwed 180 degrees, and then some.
* Droids were comic relief of the first and second seasons. It was annoying.

All in all, it was an good show that took some time to find it's feet.

After many years, a seventh season was been announced in an attempt to take away from ''The Last Jedi'' being shit and add ''something'' to the empty Disney Plus lineup. At least some of the episodes will be ones that were in production when the show ended. It promptly disappeared after that announcement for a couple years till it was announced it's coming out in 2019.

===Star Wars: Rebels===
[[Image:WomanYellingAtLothcat.jpeg|right|400px|thumb|''Stop fooling our plan, you rebel scum!'']]
Now that Disney owns Star Wars they can't go a season without something new to run on Disney XD, so after ''The Clone Wars'' ended they needed a series to milk episodes out of and launched ''Rebels''. ''Rebels'' is set a few years before ''A New Hope'' and covers the early formation of the rebellion from the perspective of one cell focused on the planet Lothal. If you liked ''Rogue One'' but thought it should be about 25 hours long and done in cartoony CGI then this is the show for you.

So what did we see in ''Rebels''?

* Grand Admiral Thrawn makes his debut in Disney Star Wars, along with the TIE Defender project. The character doesn’t lose much in the translation, and later on is arguably treated better than the source.
* The bearded old guy in the Endor strike team in RotJ turns out to be Captain Rex. Fan theory at first, later confirmed.
* You CAN [[combi-weapon]] a lightsaber and a blaster, and it's OP as shit
* Force wolves (no, not [[Rune Priest|those force wolves]])
* [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones-style]] Mandos (Krownest is pretty much Space-Winterfell).
* Imperial Inquisitors. Sure they don’t last long, but they were intimidating while they were, and it planted the seed that was used elsewhere.
* Some good appearances by Darth Vader.

So about the wolves... ''Rebels'' turns the force mysticism up past 11. Forget just being precog space monks with laser swords; as far as ''Rebels'' is concerned the Jedi are [[craftworld]] [[eldar]] without the racism. Rebels picks up the torch of the Clone Wars “Force Gods” and mixes in some of the straight-up fantasy shit from the Lucas era novels and the KOTOR/Old Republic Jedi philosophy schools and heresies beyond just “Light good, Dark bad”.

However, there were levels of derp that we got to see in this show, such as the following:

* Since this is a Disney cartoon, the bad guys can't have even a temporary victory. This changes Thrawn and the other Imperials from an imposing force to [[Abbadon|cartoon villains]], although Rebels villains manage to stay intimidating more than Grievous did in Clone Wars.
* Battles slower paced than a Death Guard movement phase. Enjoy characters having full conversations in cover-based shooting when everyone has Stormtrooper aim.
* Lightsabers the shape of toothpicks.
* [[Bullshit|Helicopter lightsabers]]
* Complete bipolarity in tone. This can create some great moments, but invariably ruins the mood episode by episode, or between the A and B plots.
* Iron Squadron. Just...fucking [[Rage|Iron Squadron]]
* Star Destroyers look terrible, mostly due to their bridge towers being way taller than they should be.

All in all, it depends on your preference.

Since the show does have a fair amount of dedicated fans, <strike>likely</strike> possibly more than the sequel trilogy itself, Disney has made a habit of planting Easter Egg references to Rebels in basically everything moving forward, usually in the form of an appearance by the iconic ship The Ghost or the friendly-ish space pirate character Hondo Ohnaka.

===Star Wars: Resistance===
Annnd they had to go and change things again. With ''Rebels'' coming to a close and a burning need to keep Star Wars on their lineup, Disney had a choice: find a new plot and setting for a formula and art style that had produced two successful multi-season shows, or throw it all out and start from scratch. Remember, this is Disney we're talking about, the company that once [[Fail|paid a quarter billion dollars to fire the producer who made ''The Little Mermaid'', ''Beauty and the Beast'', ''Aladdin'', and ''The Lion King'']] only for him to go and [[profit|found Dreamworks]] out of spite.

Like its predecessor, ''Star Wars: Resistance'' sets itself up as a prequel to a trilogy, in this case following the early days of the Resistance in its fight against the First Order. Where it differs from ''Rebels'' is that ''Resistance'' is playing the warm up act for a trilogy that nobody likes. On top of which, the creators abandoned the 3D style that ''Rebels'' inherited from ''The Clone Wars'', and replaced it with a cel style that's half ''Treasure Planet'', half ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' and all ''RWBY''.

To be blunt, this show is 100% pure crystal derp. Our star is Kazuda Xiono, a manic depressive who literally fanboy-ed his way into being a spy under the cover story of being a mechanic, two jobs he is not qualified for. This kid is the Invader Zim of Star Wars. Filling out the cast we have the original only cockney girl in space, an autistic alien, their widower boss who is definitely gonna die, D.Va and her ex-imperial officer dad, and BB-8. Poe Dameron shows up regularly so he can be Ace Fucking Rimmer without having to compete against Rey for the TOP SUE trophy. Reception was so terrible it was confirmed canceled at 2 seasons before the second season even started.

Part of the problem with ''Resistance'' is that the First Order has a doomfort that can frag planets across the galaxy, yet has to resort to hiring pirates to encourage settlements into accepting the First Order's protection racket. Palpy's empire was a model of efficient, heavy handed governance; its evil intent veiled from the masses who mostly resent it for bringing order. The First Order on the other hand is basically just Cobra Command, a font of evil hamstrung by flailing incompetence. As mentioned earlier, the backstory for the Resistance and First Order is basically that the First Order are a mobile pirate fleet with one untested secret base weapon lead by old farts of dubious actual leadership abilities from the Empire and their fanatical children with grunts made up of brainwashed child soldiers kidnapped from pioneer settlements while the Resistance is just a tiny militia that is so poorly funded they don’t even qualify as a single fleet since their few outdated capital ships are crewed by outdated droids and they don’t even have enough fighters to protect them, but rather than depict the potentially interesting dynamic this suggests the series just tries to be Rebels again, the same path the movies took even though at this point both factions are even smaller than they were in the movies.

===Star Wars: The Mandalorian===

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti western's so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up. Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well know spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Adeptus_Arbites|Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way" their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times, (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing). The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand awesome.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Jedi''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

==Wookieepedia==
One of the largest fan wikis ever created, this bad boy is extensively cited, has enormous variety, and has page upon page of talk. It was if Lexicanum, the 40k fan wiki, and our own glorious site were fused into a terrible beast.

==Impact on 1d4chan and associated games etc==

Star Wars has had subtle and clear impacts on a number of other franchises and genres and it can be ''incredibly'' hard to gauge the extent of it all. Certainly it didn't create the concepts of sci-fi, space battles, sweeping storylines, and a blending of mystical and scientific ideas, but it certainly popularized them during the years of the original trilogy and influenced many people that would go on to have interests in sci-fi, fantasy and epic adventure today.

Hell, look me in the eye and tell me that the lightsaber didn't give us the [[power weapon]]. But then again, magic weapons.
==Sabacc and Pazaak==
A rather unusual entry here but it's well in line, Sabacc is an actual tabletop card game from the Star Wars universe which is basically a hybrid of Poker and Blackjack. A Sabacc Deck has 76 cards, most of which in four suits of 16 cards numbered one to 16, plus sixteen wildcards in two sets with values that were either negative or (in the case of the Idiot) Zero. The goal of the game is to have a set of three cards who's total as close as possible to, but not over, 23 or -23. If you got 23/-23 (Pure Sabacc) which could only be beaten by an Idiot's Array (One Idiot, a two and a three, thus 23). The stakes are raised every cycle until the cards go down or one player is left standing who gets the pot.

The notable thing about Sabacc that sets it apart from real world card games is that the Cards can change value every turn. A Pure Sabacc can easily become an instant lose 25 and an absolutely lousy hand can become an Idiot's Array. They can be stabilized to fix their value, but everyone knows when you do so. This feature has so far prevented Sabacc from being released in tabletop form as of yet. ''(Of course, there are ways to deal with this, such as simply re-dealing unfixed cards, but never let it be said that nerds will choose practicality over purity.)''

In universe, Han Solo won the Millenium Falcon off Lando in a game of Sabacc.

Pazaak is an older game from an in-universe perspective, similar to Blackjack but its player versus player rather than player versus dealer and also has some aspects of a collectible card game. Goal of the game is to raise cards from the main deck until their total value is 20 or they can also choose to stand if they get close but don't want to risk it. Best out of five wins.

CCG-aspect of Pazaak comes from the sidedeck: both players collect ten cards for their side deck and then randomly take four cards from their side deck to their hand in the beginning of the game. Hand cards are used to either lower or raise the total value: so if the player raises cards from the main deck to the total value of 25, they can prevent dropping out if they have a -5 card or higher in their hand.
Cards which only either raise or lower the value are the most common of the side cards.
More rarer are cards which can be used to both raise and lower the value.
Then there are flip cards, which change certain main deck cards on the table to negative ones. So if the player plays a 2&4 flip card, all 2:s and 4:s on the table become -2:s and -4:s. Flip cards exist in 2&4:s and 3&6:s.
Then there is the double card, which doubles the value of the last played card. So if the player raises a 5 from the main deck, playing the double card would turn it into a 10.
Finally, the rarest side deck card is the tiebreaker, which grants the player a win if the game would otherwise end in a tie.

==Tabletop games for Star Wars==

=== Role-playing Games ===

[[West End Games]] made a Star Wars [[role-playing game]] called [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] AKA '''Star Wars D6'''. Like many West End products, it's a good game with the great misfortune of being published by West End games.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] picked up the license later and made two distinct RPGs based on their [[d20 System]], called [[Star Wars D20]] (imaginatively). Could be fun, but generally broken as hell, much like [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|its parent game]]. It was then utterly revised that into what they called the '''Saga Edition''', which is relatively balanced and pretty good.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars Roleplaying Game|a whole line of Star Wars-themed RPGs]], each one focusing on a specific style of play. You want to play a bunch of scruffy space outlaws (Edge of the Empire), members of the nascent Rebellion (Age of Rebellion), or exiled Jedi Knights (Force and Dedtiny), then they got you covered. Unlike their [[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]] games, which are all ''juuuuust'' different enough from one another to completely buttfuck any attempts at blending, all three gamelines use identical mechanics and are fully cross-compatible. Uses symbol-counting [[dice pool]]s with ludicrously overpriced custom dice.
Like the other RPGs they decided with the retardedly similar name, and thus this one is sometimes called '''Star Wars FFG''' to avoid confusion.

FFG have kept milking the franchise and in summer 2017, decided to [[Necromancer | reanimate]] the [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] with a "30th Year Anniversary Edition" print of the original game. It '''''finally''''' shipped in July 2018 after spending a year in limbo.

=== Card Games ===

The big [[card game]] set in the Star Wars universe is the [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]. It's no longer produced by Decipher, but there is still a sufficiently large player community to organize annual tournaments, rule on cards, and so on. SWCCG was radically different from the norm of card games, being divided into light and dark side cards with different backings, with light and dark always playing against each other. For tournament play a player would need both a light and dark deck.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] made the [[Star Wars Trading Card Game]].

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars: The Card Game]].

Obviously, nobody is capable of creating a Star Wars card game with an interesting name.

Aside from the real, physical, games there was also ''Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game''. It was a real, functioning, card game within the MMO that used all virtual cards. Unfortunately no server emulators have implemented it yet.

=== Miniature Games ===
[[Wizards of the Coast]] did a tabletop battles game imaginatively called Star Wars: Miniatures, based on an extremely dumbed down version of the D&D ruleset. The figures were meant to tie in with the Saga edition RPG, it wasn't terrible on its own, just impossible to collect for competitive play since figures came in random booster packs so you never know what you were getting for what faction. Who could possibly stand for that?

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is producing the [[X-Wing]] miniatures game based on individual starfighter combat (because, let's be honest, that's what ''Star'' Wars is all about). They have also released [[Star Wars: Armada]] which is a larger scale "fleet" combat simulator, using capital ships and squadrons of starfighters.

'''Star Wars: Imperial Assault'''

The latest [[Fantasy Flight Games]] addition to its Star Wars related games is a mix between a miniature board game and a skirmish wargame. It has two play modes:

One for campaign play where 1-4 players control a team of Rebel heroes and another player has the role of the DM, who controls the Imperial forces. The campaign, as the name suggests, focuses on character personalization, xp gain and the like, which you can find in any light RPG-esque (board)game. The main goal is to get a few friends together and casually play through the missions. Think of it as a Star Wars version of the original [[Hero Quest]].

The other play mode is skirmish play, where two players each get to assemble a team of miniatures plus a command deck (cards that have specific effects when played) and play against each other in an open-play scenario. The play area is still very limited to a few game tiles (as in a campaign mission) but players are free to bring whatever they want (with a few limitations of course). The skirmish part of Imperial assault is as close as you can get to an actual Star Wars skirmish wargame, but it is a missed opportunity from Fantasy Flight to create a true skirmish wargame (ala [[Infinity (wargame)|Infinity]]), not based on tiles and so confined spaces. Who knows what they have plans for though...

'''Star Wars Legion'''

And Fantasy Flight have now given us a fully fledged wargame, complete with AT-ST in the first wave. (They're 32mm scale, which means [[Games Workshop|no reusing your Imperial Assault miniatures]].) Legion has an integrated turn system, and the usual FF custom dice and forest worth of dead trees in cards and tokens that will be familiar to X-Wing and Armada players. The miniatures are PVC, reasonably detailed, easy to assemble pieces. A standard battle is 800 points, which could be anywhere from half a dozen to 16 units on the field, with an average army fielding 8-12 units comprising 30-ish models.

=== Board Games ===

The most famous and arguably best one is [[Star Wars: Rebellion]], an asymmetric two-player game that plays through the Original Trilogy in a wargame/worker placement-esque game. The Empire player must expand their already huge military base over the galaxy to build more ships and huge superweapons while searching for the Rebel Base, while the Rebels do their best to bite them in their heel, obscuring their movements and annoying the Empire until they have enough support to overthrow the Empire. As a [[Fantasy Flight Games|FFG]] boardgame, it's filled with a ludicrous amount of bits and pieces (including sweet models of Star Destroyers, Death Stars and Calamari Cruisers), as well as the trademark filled-with-small-exceptions ruleset. It's pretty sweet and still considered one of the best board games of its kind.

=== Card Miniature Games ===

In the late 00's, WizKids produced a short lived construct-able miniatures Star Wars game based on their styrene card system for Pirates of the Spanish Main. Although the game sold well, when NECA bought WizKids from Topps the rights did not transfer and it went out of print.

==Video Games for Star Wars==

To put it bluntly, every game which could possibly have ''Star Wars'' slapped onto it, exists. Flight simulators. Racers. Rail shooters. Doom clones. MMOs. Age of Empires reskins. Hell, there's even a Kinect variety game. Here's a few standouts...

* '''Knights of the Old Republic''': A pair of single player RPGs depicting a Sith war several thousand years before ''A New Hope''. KotOR is widely regarded as the best Star Wars video game ever, and was the framework for BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' series. Of all the Legends stuff, KotOR appears to still be in good standing with Disney since they continue to borrow from it. The sequel by Obsidian was the original skubtastic take on the franchise TLJ wanted to be but failed miserably. Got an MMO simply called "Old Republic" (since you can play as things other than Jedi and Sith) that is the sequel, which had a very rough start but stabilized enough to still survive to this day somehow). Possibly still canon in the Disney continuity since a lot of things get borrowed or referenced from it. Also the only thing in the EU to still receive new content.

* '''Jedi Knight:''' A series that started of as an early FPS named Dark Forces (so early that it was the time when FPS games were still known as [[Doom]]-clones) but Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had the protagonist become a Jedi. The Dark Forces name was dropped in favor of Jedi Knight after this. The series combines surprisingly deep lightsaber combat with standard shooting, though the levels can get very mazy at times. Introduced Kyle Katarn, one of the most popular characters from EU. Unfortunately, there has not been a new game since 2003's ''Jedi Academy'' and likely will never be thanks to Disney.

* '''Republic Commando''': An FPS that has the player command a squad of commandos. Its a great shooter but unfortunately, it never received a sequel and to make things worse, ended on a cliffhanger. The second act of the game, set entirely on a drifting Acclamator-class assault ship is particularly memorable and highly atmospheric. If one can look past outdated graphics, its worth trying out for anyone who wants a good FPS experience.

* '''Empire at War''': Made by the original developers of [[Command and Conquer]], it is the most notable strategy game to have come out of Star Wars. Notable for featuring three different modes of play: ground battles, space battles and galactic conquest map. Though ground battles are a bit meh, the space battles are great and the galactic conquest is certainly more interesting than only playing random skirmish matches. Even though its over 10 years old, it has a very active modding community. Republic at War, which changes the games Galactic Civil War setting to Clone Wars and Thrawns Revenge, set much further into the Galactic Civil War than portrayed in the films, are particularly great. There is also a remake mod in the works, aiming to bring the game up to modern standards in terms of visuals, sound and UI and the results do look good. Unfortunately, no great 40k mod.

* '''Star Wars Galaxies''': An early MMO, launched after ''Everquest'' but before ''WoW''. Galaxies is noteworthy for making force powers a prestige achievement requiring enormous in-game effort to unlock. The first expansion pack added a subgame that's a pretty solid flight game in its own right and the game eventually added an original, fully playable, trading card game that sadly has not yet been implemented in any simulator. Then ''World of Warcraft'' hit, Sony panicked and made Jedi a starting class and replaced the skill system with massive level grind, and offered refunds to the raging army of neckbeards. Subscription numbers tanked and never recovered. It would effectively be replaced by ''The Old Republic'', an MMO using the acclaimed KotOR setting. Like most "dead" MMOs that people loved it still lives on through illegal private servers (don't worry, the guys providing it would get busted, not people playing on it).

* '''X-Wing (and TIE Fighter)''': A series of ''Wing Commander'' clones released in the 90's. While badly dated today, they were the best fighter sims of their time, and if you can get past the highly primitive graphics some people still consider them to be the best to this day. Interestingly, TIE Fighter is largely seen as the best of the series while the N64 era Rogue Squadron and Shadows Of The Empire games are seen as being far more visually modern but largely inferior sequels. Did we mention you had to use a flight stick controller basically made for these games to really do well at these?

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2005)''': Not to be confused with the one released by EA in 2017. Solid game from the new-defunct Pandemic studio (fuck you, EA) in 2005 told from the perspective of a clone trooper that survived all the way up to the battle of Hoth, with a very down to earth boots on the ground approach. Also, just being thrown into random matches as a soldier because fun. Despite some issues, it remains the high point of the Battlefront series as well as the entire PS2 era, and on PC still has fans via an active modding community to this day. There is of course also the original one but the second one pretty much completely overshadowed it.

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)''': The one by EA. You've probably heard everything important. An absolute mess at launch due to its lootbox-heavy progression system, so much so that it started discussion even on government level about lootboxes that continues to this day. A comment by EA that became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Yet despite all this, two years later, the game is arguably one of the best Star Wars experiences one can have and an Anakin-level redemption story. Like the previous Battlefront II, it completely overshadowed its predecessor.

* '''Jedi: Fallen Order''': It took them years but finally, EA managed to deliver a Star Wars game that is great on launch without cramming it with e-transactions. Its plot focuses on an unfortunate Jedi renegade between ''Revenge'' and ''A New Hope'' who's on the hunt for a hidden database that might document all the Force-sensitive individuals in the galaxy. A game inspired primarily by games such as Dark Souls and Uncharted, its a great action-adventure game in its own right and a must-play for any Star Wars fan.

* '''Monopoly Star Wars''': Its Star Wars Monopoly. With 90's FMV that plays for every square you land on. On floppy disks. Considered fucking amazing at the time, its too strange and tabletop to not mention. Also one of the last pre-Prequel things released.

* '''Super Star Wars''': A heavily modified retelling of the original trilogy (what, you don't remember how Luke chased down the Sandcrawler and murdered all the Jawas as well as their giant rat god in order to rescue R2-D2?) that was one of the ways to say "hard as fuck" by namedropping a game prior to Dark Souls existing. Amusing for the insanity of the added content in order to make a platformer sidescrolling beat'em'up as well as how neckbeardy you have to be to punish yourself trying to beat it without cheating.

* '''Star Wars: Yoda Stories''': A game geared for kids, released the same year as Monopoly above. Players play as Luke sometime after Empire Strikes Back, although an odd alternate version where Han sometimes is free from carbonite and Boba Fett and sometimes is not. They are assigned a quest by Yoda which requires them to traverse one or more procedurally generated planets doing whatever odd crap Yoda felt was necessary, including sometimes fighting Vader. Recieved middling scores as a PC release, with some individuals HATING the game and using it as a benchmark for how much they hate something when comparing the two, although to be fair that is because distributors tried to sell it like a full game when in reality its supposed to just be freebie software that came with other purchases and was meant to go with Solitaire and space pinball as default games on a computer to waste time with. It has lapsed into obscurity thanks to even those reviewers largely being forgotten on the modern internet. Noteworthy for being played on a grid with simultaneous turn-based movement with all enemies and NPCs on a screen, feeling very much like a tabletop game at times. A simple puzzle game, where getting blocked in a corner without enough space to pass the time by an idiot NPC is more dangerous than any foe.

*'''Shadows of the Empire''': Made on the Nintendo 64 and Windows PC, you play as Dash Rendar, a scoundrel in a ship like Han Solo working for the Rebellion. Takes place during Episode V as a side story. Despite being much beloved by fans for years and years, it's sadly not aged well thanks to the rather peculiar control scheme of the N64 and the graphics not having aged like cheap cheese in the sun. Main enemy of the game is a xeno named Xisor who is just a real uppity crime boss (and apparently a prince). This game has an absolute great opening first part where you're flying in a Snowspeeder on Hoth killing Imperials left and right while trying to use the cables to crash the AT-ATs like in the movie. After that the game begins to kinda just carry on with awkward controls.

==Assorted list of Awesome From Star Wars==
* Fucking ''[[Lightsaber|Lightsabers!]]''
* The fucking [[Approved music|OST]]
* What is likely the greatest duel in cinematic history, that takes place on a [[Death World|lava planet.]]
* Deathly Stormtroopers, heroic Clonetroopers or sinister First Order troopers; whatever they're called, stormtroopers are awesome!
* Darth Vader whenever he gets a speaking line or to murder rebel scum - that is to say, all the time.
* Darth Maul in both The Phantom Menace and TCW.
* Lightsaber Rifles
* The entirety of the Umbara campaign, where <s>Imperial Guardsmen</s> Clone Troopers die in the dozens attempting to win some godforsaken planet, earning them balls of titanium that make the guard look ba- {{BLAM| '''*BLAM*''' Heresy!}}
* 97% of the Creatures.
* 98% of the Starfighter designs.
* Costumes that mix about every possible inspiration, Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese, Ancient Greece and Rome, Elizabethan, Moebius or Pulp Sci-Fi from the 60's, giving the whole series a distinctive style and gives Padme Amidala an excuse to show off with all her dresses.
* Boba and Jango Fett and the rest of the Mandalorians.
* KOTOR (both games) plot making you think this shit is actually logical and has so much philosophical background. One of the creepiest depictions of the Universe. Everything is brutal, with big vibrating knives, blood, those machines for Sith snuff movies, more blood, bastards, badass bastards and so on. Everything while somebody is talking with you about existence.
* Our saviour Lord Revan. He's like if [[Horus|fucking Horus]] just became [[Big Bad Evil Guy|fucking bad]] (but not that [[Erebus|bad]]) to fucking destroy the [[Chaos Gods|Dark Gods]] so he can solve his daddy issues.
**but he's more virile, deadly, powerful, charismatic and cool.
* Lightsabers.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi.
* The High Ground.
* TIE fighters. They have the most distinctive scream of any fighter in cinematic history that just yells "I'm evil!". Tell me I'm wrong. I'll wait.
** The fact that they managed to do that using what is essentially a shitty visual pun.
* Most of Episode 3.
* The entirety of Anakin's story, especially when you add the Clone Wars and prequels. While you're at it, watch CinemaWins' perspective on it the series.
* Admiral Ackbar the Memeable!
* Palpatine getting into some Tzeentchian-level scheming and backstabbing in order to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic.
* Grand Admiral Thrawn: So awesome that he rose to a high rank in the anthropocentric Empire despite being an alien and was one of the first (and rare few) things to be imported straight from Legends to Disney.
* Imperial Pilots get a mention, seeing as they fly literal garbage fighters against superior rebel fighters. By garbage, we mean that even the Imperium have better fighter designs than these guys. At least Imperial fighters conserve the life of the fucking pilot.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi again.
* Princess, later Senator Leia Organa; the original badass-yet-hot boss lady in space. Ends up leading two separate, successful underground freedom movements against impossible odds. Did we mention she's a Jedi in both canons?
* Han Solo, who is so badass that hot Leia falls in love. He has the smuggler's best friend, a Wookie, who is also the worst opponent you can face in a [[Chess|Dejarik match]].
* Just... Star Destroyers. When you see a huge, imposing warship from an evil Empire, this is the granddaddy they all look up to.
* Oh, did we mention the lightsabers ?

== See Also: ==
* ''[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/ Darths & Droids]'': A webcomic, made using photo-stills of the ''Star Wars'' movies to tell a story about gamers blundering through each of the six movies in sequence... though not quite exactly how you might expect. Think ''DM of the Rings'' in overall visual style, though unlike ''DM of the Rings'', ''Darths & Droids'' features several heavy twists on the actual events of the films, subplots about the players and their lives outside the game alongside the campaign, and a better overall quality of gamer.
* "[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html/ Endor Holocaust]": An excellent example of the [[skub]] Star Wars can create. Rebuttal: "[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/fanart/endortruth20040810.pdf Endor Rebuttal]"
*[[Timothy Zahn]]
*[[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]]
*[[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*[[Star Wars:Resistance]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

Star Wars

2020-03-13T23:02:24Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* The Books */

{{Star Wars}}
[[File:Star-Wars-Logo (1).jpg|center|500px|]]

{{Topquote|A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....|Star Wars opening text}}
'''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D0ZQPqeJkk/ Star Wars]''' is one of, if not ''the'', most influential media franchises of modern times, let alone its effect on science-fiction and fantasy. Indeed, among [[/tg/|nerddom]], it is challenged by only a few others, like [[Star Trek]] and [[The Lord of the Rings]].

The incredibly ardent fandom is spread worldwide and has a strong presence in popular culture. Many of the characters, like Darth Vader and Yoda, are iconic even to the general public. John Williams' score for the original trilogy is probably the best-known film score of all time. The universe has spawned numerous video games, hundreds of novels, multiple TV shows, one of the largest merchandising franchises ever, and, relevant to /tg/, a whole bunch of board, card, and roleplaying games.

It is also the current leading world source of [[Skub]].

==The Basic Concept==
Star Wars was originally a series of epic science-fantasy "space operas" that roughly followed the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. They're set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," [Note: this makes the entire series a fairy tale] where a mysterious life force called (reasonably enough) the Force permeates everything. This, in turn, can be wielded by certain people, giving them pseudo-magical abilities; thank the Emperor (no, the other one) there were no Commissars in that universe. Those who use it for good become mystical, selfless warrior monks called Jedi, whereas those who use it for evil are ruthless, self-serving bastards called Sith. However, the Force must always be in balance, so any time the Sith arise to cause imbalance, the Jedi have to pull together and take them out to restore the natural order.

The so-called Original Trilogy (made up of films IV through VI, released from 1977 to 1983) followed a young man named Luke Skywalker who becomes a Jedi and re-balances the Force. Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance is fighting to end the oppressive Galactic Empire, which is secretly led by the Sith. Luke and his Rebel companions eventually defeat the evil Emperor Palpatine, but along the way they discover that his lieutenant, Darth Vader, is actually Luke's father. A financial, critical, popular and cultural H-bomb, these movies are basically the filter through which Generation X perceives the world... for better or worse.

The so-called Prequel Trilogy (made up of films I through III, released from 1999 to 2005) explained how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and how the Galactic Empire was established. This involves a lot of convoluted politicking in the Republic, which is then torn apart in the Clone Wars, where the Republic (with an army of clones led by the Jedi) fights against the Confederacy (with an army of robots led by [[Necrons|General Grievous]] and secretly controlled by the Sith). It was not as well received as the first trilogy, for reasons we'll talk about below.

There's also a so-called Sequel Trilogy (made up of film VII and presumably films VIII and IX), which started in 2015 and picked up the story some three decades after the Emperor's defeat with a new generation of heroes taking on the remains of the evil Empire, which is a group of extremist former Imperials calling themselves the First Order. However, Episode VII aka ''The Force Awakens'', was directed by J.J. Abrams, who's mostly known for the [[skub|skubtastic]] [[Star Trek]] reboot, while Episode VIII was written and directed by Ryan Johnson who was a young director known for plot twists and genre experimentation on a handful of movies and television episodes that openly said he wanted to "subvert expectations" and make half of viewers dislike his work, then got pissed when half of them disliked his work. The result managed to fracture the Star Wars fanbase over issues of dull rehashing for VII and a whole laundry list of reasons for VIII (ranging from small ones such as it being too different, to major issues like half the movie being filler), as well as those who still enjoyed them and very little common ground between the three groups.

Finally, there are the so-called Anthology movies, standalone one-shots involving characters and plotlines that aren't a part of the main "Saga" films, except they kind of are. The first, Rogue One (2016), is an immediate prequel to Episode IV that follows those Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans. The second film follows a young Han Solo and pals Chewie and Lando. A third rumored one follows Boba Fett.

There are also three separate TV series. The first one, ''Clone Wars'', was based on traditional animation, whereas the later one, '''''The''' Clone Wars'', was a weird 3D animation. They're both pretty good. There was also a terrible theatrical release that was basically just an advertisement for ''The Clone Wars'', but, since it's even worse than the Prequel Trilogy (hint: babysitting Jabba the Hutt's kid), nobody talks about it much. The third series is Disney's ''"Rebels"'' which is set between Episodes III-IV and it takes itself far less seriously than Clone Wars did, and is more of a homage to the original trilogy since not every character in the series is the owner of a lightsaber nor are they constantly talking about grown-up politics, senators and trade embargoes... pretty much the things that clogged up the plot of the prequel trilogy.

And then there's the whole Expanded Universe, which covers pretty much everything not covered by the films, like the Old Republic (set thousands of years before the prequel trilogy, when there were a hell of a lot more Sith and Jedi around) and the New Republic (set immediately after the original trilogy, explaining what became of all the characters. It could also reach 40k levels of grimdark with races like the [[Dark Eldar|Yuuzhan]] [[Tyranids|Vong]] characters like [[Vampire|Darth Nihilus]] and beings like [[Old Ones|Abeloth]].

The EU is no longer considered in the main canon of the films and TV series, due to the new sequel trilogy which does not follow EU, the reason for this being, according to Disney, that following EU would restrict their creative freedom. The reaction to this was, well, [[skub|mixed, for lack of a better word.]] They've since noted that they'll slot ''some'' of it in on a case-by-case basis, but the canon is in a highly fluid state at the moment. EU is now officially called Star Wars Legends, though most fans still refer to it as EU.

==Why is it so popular?==

Star Wars is as accessible as science fiction gets. It doesn't require extensive knowledge of a fictional world (a la ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' or ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'') or cultural background (as ''[[Star Trek]]'' sometimes does) to make sense. Those elements are present for those who want them, but they largely stay in the (very rich and vibrant) background. It has well-shot action and good ''enough'' dialogue to make it interesting for both kids and adults (as well as allowing parents who grew up with it to watch it with their children, thereby hooking the next generation of viewers). It has simple, good-vs.-evil themes that resonate with almost anyone, anywhere, at any time. The science fiction elements are generally handled well if you don't obsess over making science fiction realistic and hard. It's a prime gateway drug for sci-fi which still holds up to the experienced eye, [[Isaac Asimov]] saw and rather enjoyed the films. All in Fourteen hours of cinema, plus optional sides for those who want it.

There's a ton of merchandise that is, of course, really cool. Also, given it's crossed over into the mainstream, many people feel comfortable being part of the community without feeling judged as "nerds" (as they might with ''Lord of the Rings'', ''D&D'', ''Star Trek'', ''Warhammer'', etc.).

Again, they roughly follow the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. If you think about it, 6 of the 9 films can be summarized as: hero begins his journey under the tutelage of a wise (more or less) man, they encounter a threat which has captured/enslaved a princess/girl, who was in one way or another connected to an important secret (usually a superweapon but could be the identity of a political figure or the location of someone); the heroes save the princess/girl but someone dies tragically in a battle against the villain while someone else is blowing up a space station or a spaceship afterwards they are happy, they celebrate and mourn the loss of the poor bloke who died.

Additionally, the first film can be summarized as a samurai and a gunslinger team up to save a princess from Nazis in space. That is multiple cinematic genres at once, following the style of the epic myth.

==Setting==
Due to article bloat, [[Star Wars Setting]] is now its own page.

==The rise of the original trilogy==

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away....etc etc you all know the lines.

A man called George Lucas had the idea to create a series of epic sci-fi space operas that would become so successful that Disney would take notice and give it the franchise fluttering eye lashes, trying to seduce it.

They would be called... ''Flash Gordon''.

Unfortunately for Georgie boy, and fortunately for modern nerddom, Dino de Laurentiis already owned ''Flash Gordon'', and were busy making their own, hilariously eighties version, so he said, screw it, I'll make my own!

He decided to start with the fourth movie in the series he envisioned, for at the time he didn't have the special effects to create the first three to the standard he wanted, and/or he just kinda made up the first movie as he went along (drawing heavily on Akira Kurosawa's seminal samurai action film, ''Hidden Fortress'' in the process as well as the book [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces''], a complex 1949 Joseph Campbell analysis of the various mythologies of human history all boiled down into the basic archtypes and elements required in heroic myth). So Episode Four ''A New Hope'' was created (simply titled ''Star Wars'' at the time) and it is not an exaggeration to say it changed the face of sci-fi and general moviemaking forever, bringing a new era of special effects and imagination to cinema and changing the lives of many who would go onto to become dedicated fan boys.

Originally, the studio had forced Lucas to take ever-increasing paycuts for what they were sure was going to be a flop, and only let him keep merchandising rights. However, whatever his flaws, George Lucas was a man of vision. Having helped pioneer the summer blockbuster, he went on to do the same to ginormous piles of movie-tie-in memorabilia. His production company, Lucasfilm ended up rolling in dosh, and with Episode Five ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and Episode Six ''The Return of the Jedi'', the legend of Star Wars and its place in cultural history was assured.

tl;dr: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4w7ChpuaM Pretty much this.]

==The coming of the prequel trilogy==
With the year 2000 coming, George Lucas felt that special effects technology had reached the level he wanted and began to create the first three movies in the star wars story he had envisioned. (As a side-note, he also made some touch-ups to the three original films, re-mastering them with special effects and a couple of extra scenes that weren't doable with the eighties' animatronics. But those were mostly accepted/shrugged away since they didn't deeply modify anything.)

The hype for the movies was immense.

And then the first movie, Episode One ''The Phantom Menace'' came out.....and there was nerd rage beyond expectation.

Part of the problem was that the immense expectations of the fandom had grown until anything less-than-perfect simply would not do, so perhaps that is somewhat to blame for the reaction to the prequel trilogy. In a vacuum one has to admit that they aren't completely ''[[Twilight|terrible films]]'' .

Episode Two ''Attack of the Clones'' and Episode Three ''Revenge of the Sith'' followed after a few years each and didn't garner nearly as much hatred, though fans complained they didn't match the greatness of the original trilogy, more concerned with flashy action and effects than competent story-telling; but hooo-boy did it deliver in flashy action, with laser armed [[MI-24 Hind|MI-24's]] full of <s>storm</s>troopers extracting jedi from a coliseum full of shooty killbots.

''Revenge of the Sith'' did, however, receive higher ratings than ''Return of the Jedi'', and is generally seen as the best and most-complete of the three prequel films as a story. Unusually the novelization alters some details and is considered a legitimately good book on its own merits.

What was generally more well received (despite a rocky start with a two hour pilot being pressed into service as a movie and an art style that took some time to gel) during this time for Star Wars was the Clone Wars animated series (both the traditionally-animated ''Clone Wars'' and the later seasons of the CGI show '''''The''' Clone Wars'', the latter which most everyone agrees is what the prequels should have been), following the war between the Republic and the Confederacy that sprung up during the time between the second and third of the prequels.

It'd be ''really'' hard to find a group of movies more skubtastic than the prequel trilogy, and saying a good or bad thing about it in front of the wrong crowd's sure to provoke huge amounts of nerdrage. In defense of the prequel trilogy's sins, they did at least do their own thing. Because of how much money the original trilogy made, practically every form of media in the 80s and 90s aped it to some form or another, and instead of falling back on the same old shit the prequels branched out and tried to get out of the franchise's comfort zone a bit. While a lot of it sucked, it blazed a trail for better writers to follow and helped liven up the universe by showing us the galaxy beyond fuckhueg spaceships and faux-Western shitholes like Tatooine. And all but the most [[Neckbeard|diehard OT purists]] can get behind shit like Naboo architecture, the Clone Army and Mace "The Ace" Windu. From a story perspective the worst sin of the prequels was demystifying the force, and subsequent works have largely swept that detail under the carpet.

==Disney and the sequel trilogy==

Finally, all the efforts by Disney to woo George Lucas paid off and in 2012 Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise for 4 billion dollars and immediately announced they would produce a new trilogy of films set after the original trilogy.

Expectations were almost as high as the private fears of the fans. Bringing on the creative talent behind the [[skub|skubtastic]] ''[[Star Trek]]'' reboot was equally... well, [[skub|take a wild guess]].

For sake of sanity, these section have been condensed. Read at your own peril.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 7: The Mouse Awakens===
''Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens'' debuted in December of 2015, and reception was what you would expect: the film was immediately a massive success from a monetary standpoint as everyone ([[China|almost]]) everywhere rushed to the theaters in response to the hype, with children engaging in as many repeat viewings as their parent's money could allow as fans did the same thing with their own. It has become a financial hit with the general public and a (critically) generally well-reviewed piece, with decent cinematography, special effects, technical stuff, etc. It also went on to become the third biggest financial success in film history (at the time), when not adjusted for inflation.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Fan response was a good deal more mixed. Many criticize the plot for rehashing Episode IV, without doing anything to establish its own identity and claim that it had a bland main character, [[Mary Sue|who had too many abilities]] whereas others find the replication of ''Star Wars'' feel an acceptable trade and praise it for being a decent action film, [[skub|and claim the lead doesn't outdo any of the previous main characters]].

Some would argue that by rehashing the original trilogy it basically nullified the accomplishments of the original crew; the Empire's still around, they've got yet another superweapon, Han & Leia split up, Luke failed to rebuild the Jedi, etc. Other fans praised it simply for being a new Star Wars that was better than the prequel trilogy (expectations were lowered due to those, to be honest). Some see poor storytelling when there was no proper showing of what went on in the galaxy 3 decades since Palpatine died, and not explaining what caused big character changes like why Han returned to his old ways or Luke ran from his friends was critical. Other say this is going to be explained in the next film and people should keep their curiosity. Some argue even with their superweapon, none of the villains feel threatening. Others argue the incompetence of the main villain is a fresh change and the point of the plot will be to see him change, to be more competent, or even learn to become good.

Overall, those against argued JJ Abrams' mystery box approach may do well for a TV series but does not mesh with films that take years to make. Defendants held the position that fans should wait to see whether the next film will do anything with the unexplained plot points.

Coincidentally, when Hamill and Fisher were originally approached by Disney to reprise their roles as Luke and Leia, they ''didn't want to do it'' right from the start. But, they didn't want to give an out-and-out "no" answer either, so they told Disney they'd return if Harrison Ford agreed to return as Han Solo as well. Knowing how much Ford ''hated'' Solo, Hamill and Fisher figured they were safe, until Disney irresistibly sweetened the deal for Ford by agreeing to kill off his character, thus forcing a reluctant Hamill and Fisher to make good on their deal... [[skub|only for the three characters to never appear on the screen at the same time.]] To be fair, Hamill has a history of saying he won’t do something only to immediately agree like he’s making a standard sitcom gag in real life, even if that usually just applies to still voicing the Joker in Batman media.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars Rebels===
Disney also released their own CGI series: ''Star Wars: Rebels'', which is actually pretty ok (considering that it airs on Disney XD, it should be no surprise that they've toned down the graphic depictions of gratuitous violence, much to the chagrin of [[Neckbeards|those who love overly gory deaths]]). It focuses less on the Jedi that have come to dominate the franchise and more on the "boots on the ground" experience of the average characters, and while the show started slow and small, the plot gained momentum as the series progressed, especially after the first season.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Rebel movement starts to grow, several characters return from ''The Clone Wars'', and the enemies the main characters have to face steadily get darker and more dangerous as more of the Empire’s attention gets attracted. When Darth Vader gets involved (played by none other than [[Awesome|James Earl Jones himself]]) he immediately proceeds to [[Awesome|open a 24-pack of unstoppable whoop-ass on the rebel scum]]. The return of Maul resulted in three character deaths (possibly four), the crippling of one main character with another well on his way down the dark side, and to top it all off Maul himself was on the loose once again. Things did not turn out so well [[Grimdark|last time that happened]], so expect the body count to rise, especially with [[Creed|Grand Admiral Thrawn]] now also coming onto the scene. The show also continues the trend set by ''The Clone Wars'' in making the Force mystical again, though whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how you felt about the <s>bullshit</s> <s>scientific</s> [[Skub|skubtastic]] midichlorian explanation of the Prequels. The animation is on point with ''The Clone Wars'', which considering it's Disney should surprise less than nobody. Oh, and Steve Blum voices one of the main characters. However, it is also noted that Star Wars Rebels may indeed have [[Grimdark|dark ending]]. Which, to a degree, it did. An important character dies, and his padawan flees into the unknown regions, leaving us with two other characters to go look for him after the second Death Star blows up.

[[Skub|The way that Filoni (the creator of Rebels and The Clone Wars) has handled the Mandalorians, a fan-favorite warrior-culture based upon the Scots and Vikings, has either been met with praise from those who despised Traviss and her overpowering of said culture, or utter RAGE that he turned many of them into either pacifist morons or bloodthirsty barbarians- usually that particular criticism comes from the Traviss fanboys]]. Do take note, however, that the old ways for the Mandalorians are making their way back into canon, such as the language, the emphasis on martial honor, and the decentralized nature of their government.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars: Rogue One===
December of 2016 brought us the first standalone Star Wars movie, "Rogue One", showing the theft of the original Death Star plans.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

While "Rogue One" can be justly criticized for lacking in character development, that was basically mandated by being set just before another movie whose actors were now 40 years too old to reprise their previous roles. The cast of the movie includes almost no one who appears in Episode IV, and the few familiar faces who do appear show up as cameos. (Fair warning: spoilers)

Accordingly, every main character dies by the end. It still manages to pack quite a lot of [[awesome]] into the movie, with Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk and Darth Vader all used to great effect. Rogue One also answers several questions, plugs several plot holes, and just generally makes A New Hope make a lot more sense in retrospect. (No wonder Vader wasn't impressed when Leia claimed to be on a "diplomatic mission.") It also has the distinctions of being the only Star Wars movie to focus on regular soldiers instead of Jedi, and being more like the original Star Wars than any of the sequels, including the other two of the main trilogy. (The original, back before it was "A New Hope", was a genre mashup of samurai + gunslinger rescue princess from space Nazis, then team up for a World War II dogfight. This one is wuxia cast + heist crew do a heist in a WWII trench warfare war zone. There's surprisingly little 'War' in Star Wars.) Much, much [[Skub]] still exists of course, since no Star Wars movie will ever please all the neckbeards but out of the five post-Disney Star Wars movies released so far, this one is definitely the least divisive and arguably the best of the bunch.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===Episode 8: The Last Royalty Check (aka zomg Luke dies!)===
On December 14 2017, ''Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi'' was released world wide. The critical reception was [[Bullshit|extremely positive]], with many critics considering it the best movie in the series since The Empire Strikes Back. The fan reception has been a great deal more negative and [[Skub|mixed]], and a number of fans are convinced that Disney leaned on media outlets to shill the new movie or else. If you have watched the Empire Strikes Back, you ''WILL'' be [[Rage|disappointed at best]], if you want to see a Star Wars film that would finally expand the characters of Kylo Ren and Rey, you ''WILL'' be satisfied and disappointed at the same time, if you want to watch the film because it is the last film starring the great and wonderful Carrie Fisher, you ''WILL'' feel hollow and sad inside, and if you came to see a pair of lightsaber-wielding punks involved in one of the [[Skub|greatest or worst lightsaber battles of the franchise, you ''WILL'' be pleased or horribly disappointed]]. The Last Jedi is seen as one of the most divisive films in the franchise by the fandom, [[FAIL|which is one hell of an achievement]] considering other films.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The complaints about The Last Jedi are many: the treatment of Luke (which even his actor, Mark Hamill, hated, to the point that he has no interest in playing Luke again), Leia's Superman asspull, Finn's plot arc that serves practically zero purpose and has him undergo the same character arc as the last movie, the forced humor, the complete disregard for established [[fluff]], disregard for even the most basic laws of physics, the fact that the central conflict is essentially the same as the one in the originals right down to the last stand ripped straight out of ''Empire'', the PC bullshit (a hipster admiral who the plot always treats as being in the right despite killing 90% of the Resistance, the Gilded Age planet arc that [[Namek|sucks up a third of the movie to no benefit,]] Rose expressing her desire to get BLACKED with a horrendous and forced #LoveTrumpsHate one-liner in the final act) added solely to virtue-signal and the whole thing being basically a 2,5h screed against the franchise it belongs to and the culture which spawned it.

Fans have also criticized the movie for dropping or discarding major plot points from TFA and repeatedly invoking Shamalamadingdong-tier plot twists for cheap gotchas that are somehow less interesting than the recycled cliches they play off of. Director Rian Johnson has responded by shitting on said critics and trying to defend the film on social media like something out of an ED or RW article. (Important note: George Lucas never tried to defend the prequels, despite the huge backlash at the time, and he agreed with fans that [[C.S Goto|The Star Wars Holiday Special]] was an abomination.) It later came out that Johnson had not been given any kind of roadmap beyond Lucas' old and unfinished concept scripts and was not allowed to see what Abrams had done until TLJ was too far into production to write in most of the previous movie's plot points, which makes the fail Disney's fault just as much as it is Johnson's. Except we also know that he had at least a modicum of influence over the ending of TFA, so they must have talked on at least some degree. As with TFA Lucasfilm has tried to paper over the holes with tie-in material, and just like TFA the fans recognize the damage control.

The Last Jedi has without a doubt torn the fanbase apart in ways even the prequels didn't come close to, with many fans declaring that they have dropped the sequel trilogy. Even Star Wars' famous merchandising has taken a mauling, as [[/toy/]] giggles at Rose Tico and General Hux figures warming shelves while new product shipments go straight from the transport case to the clearance bin.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg_FoEy8T_A I'm Solo, Han Solo, Han Solo]===
On May 25th 2018, the 41st anniversary of the franchise, ''Solo: A Star Wars Story'' was released. The general consensus seems to be that it is the most average film in the series. At the very least, most people agree that it is at least better than The Last Jedi (if barely) and the backlash from that movie can be felt even in Solo: many fans have chosen to boycott the movie. Even before release, many fans had derided the whole affair as unnecessary: no one was really asking for a Han Solo origin movie, particularly one without Harrison Ford. Han Solo's entire life history had already been explored thoroughly in EU novels and comics, so the movie could only be a retread or a retcon, both things most fanbases tend to disapprove of.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Whether it is because of this boycott or not, [[Not as planned|something no one expected happened:]] ''Solo'' was a box office bomb. Its opening weekend performed way below expectations and as of this writing, it has only made half of the money it needs for it to break even. Disney still continued to labor under the delusion that China would save their bottom line regardless of the fact that Star Wars has never been popular in China.

So what is it like? Well, rather than being a space opera like the other films, this is a space Western. Rather than being about large-scale battles and saving the galaxy from tyranny, it's about heists and the galactic underworld. (Except for the Mimban sequence, which you'd swear was lifted from a live-action Imperial Guard movie.) It's essentially Disney's reboot/retcon of the old EU Han Solo novels, taking things that were mentioned offhand in the original trilogy (like how Han did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs) and making that the subject of an entire movie. The film was perhaps cursed from the beginning due to its [[Fail|troubled production.]] How troubled? The lead needed an acting coach to get through his shoots (Han may have walked away with the Falcon, but Danny Glover's Lando stole the spotlight every time) and 70% of the movie had to be reshot by a different director due to [[Butthurt|creative differences]] between Lucasfilm and the original directors.

The fail only compounded when it premiered and fans got to see what those "creative differences" may have wrought: the writing staff started spewing bullshit to the press about Lando being "pansexual" with no precedent in any Star Wars production including ''Solo'', the film's tone is a schizophrenic nightmare to the last-minute reshoots and Han's sidekick for most of the movie is [[What|a self-built female droid social justice warrior]] named [[/v/|L3-37]]. Audiences ''cheered and applauded'' when that <s>man</s>human-hating self-insert character finally fucking died. Perhaps the most damning sin is that these are the movie's only notable qualities: take them away and you're left with a movie that would make you think "Huh, that was okay," and then never think about it again for the rest of your life, were it not for the crippling disappointment of seeing one of the most beloved franchises in the world fall so far. Between the boycotts, the mediocrity of the movie itself, and [https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Gawker certain news outlets] claiming that the driving force behind said boycotts was [[/pol/]], ''Solo'' cratered so badly that [[Exterminatus|all non-''Episode 9'' Star Wars movies were for a short time shelved indefinitely, and the only side-movie still being worked on is the obligatory Boba Fett origin movie, which is more likely to sell tickets based on the name alone.]] Incidentally, one of the writers picked by Lucasfilm to handle ''Solo'''s tie-in content, Cavan Scott, has been hired by [[Games Workshop]] for the [[Warhammer Adventures]] series.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker (aka Plan Palpa-Nine from Outer Space)===
Your opinion of this movie is very easy to predict based on what you thought of the others; if you found The Last Jedi to be "refreshing", you'll absolutely HATE this one. If you hate all Disney content aside from ''maybe'' The Mandalorian, you'll hate this one as much as the others. If you absolutely detested The Last Jedi but have mixed opinions of the rest, you'll probably consider this to be the best of the new movies to varying degrees of actual enthusiasm. The movie largely undoes or ignores swathes of the previous one.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

After finishing shooting, the film was shown to test audiences (which JJ Abrams lied never happened). The film was extremely poorly received, one of many reasons being because it had [[Mary Sue|Rey curb-stomping Palpatine by herself in the final battle]] (test audiences reportedly either laughing at the film or had to be stopped from walking out of the test screenings). The poor showing made (then) Disney CEO Bob Iger - who was overseeing the screening - furious, and he immediately ordered the film to be reshot. The resulting reshoots were so extensive, [http://archive.ph/RLj94 they spanned months and the film didn't have a final edit till December 2019, the month of release], causing trailers to be so desperate for footage that wouldn't be cut they had to fill half the length with footage from prior films and stuff used in prior trailers. Further complicating matters was that the ''very stupid'' plot was leaked months before release. Despite extensive denials from Disney and media outlets, the leaks were proven correct by getting then unrevealed names and plot objects right. Camera leaks the week before release showed very little of the fantastically stupid content leaked months beforehand was changed, only minor details.

Before reading on, be aware that Rey and Kylo are no longer movie-type Force users, they have been changed to video game characters. Like KOTOR and Jedi Academy type where you just get powers by killing enough dudes. None of the powers are new to the franchise, but have been rarely seen and in some cases never before have in movies. You should also know that unlike the first Visual Dictionary that mostly just gave little prop trivia and plot hooks for other works, and the second which was mostly irrelevant until it gets referenced in a decade or two, the final Visual Dictionary is damn near required reading (this shit will get a "VD" to indicate it) since a lot of explanations were cut in the reshoots and recuts. Like for example the connection between Rey and Kylo is a "Force Dyad", basically one soul in the Force that inhabits two bodies (setting up a bit of a snarl what happens when one dies and not the other, and implying the personality is mostly in the brain which is why they can have unique experiences, but whatever) and warps space/time. This is why Rey was inexplicably powerful and knew how to do shit instinctively, because Kylo's training passed onto her, and likewise her nonstop playing with X-Wing training sims as a child made him a badass pilot. Dyads used to be far more common in the KOTOR era, and were apparently the inspiration for the Sith Rule Of Two. This is never mentioned in the final cut of the film, but leaks show it was in one of the earlier ones.

The movie pressed on with breakneck speed that doesn't have time for musical interludes or wipe transitions, the opening crawl informing you that Palpatine has somehow returned and sent a message to the galaxy with the Resistance trying to rebuild and gather information, Rey being trained by Leia on the planet Ajan Kloss (AKA not!Yavin #2, VD) after repairing Anakin's lightsaber (VD) who had received partial training from Luke before stopping for reasons explained later in the movie and supplementing the rest with her pouring over the Jedi texts, and Kylo Ren trying to find Palpatine because his existence is a threat to his rule. The movie takes a lot of inspiration from KOTOR era lore with Ren finding a Sith McGuffin Holocron-type navigation device on Mustafar (VD) showing him the secret planet of the Sith (not Korriban/Pesegam/Moraband, this one is a planet in a red nebula that is under constant lightning storms called Exegol). There he finds a MASSIVE Sith cult that has kept itself secret and managed to not only build a fucking massive fleet of Star Destroyers equipped with planetkiller guns like something straight out of the old canon, but divisions of Stormtroopers, technicians, and officers to fill them along with the typical cultists in robes who administer to keeping Palpatine alive and seeing to his Sith alchemy shit...which includes tanks containing multiple clones of Snoke, revealing the guy was literally born looking like that with a manufactured backstory all so Palpatine could use him as a puppet to create the First Order (which is almost a meta commentary about the backstory controversy).

Kylo is offered the chance to be the new Emperor by Palpatine, who is a corpse kept barely alive through methods some would consider... Unnatural, while strapped to a machine with [[Lord Kroak|his spirit sticking nearby]] (the filmmakers zig-zagged on the nature of this; first it was the original Palpatine who had somehow duped everyone in ''Return of the Jedi'' with a clone stand in, then the reshoots changed it to the original's zombie-like rotting corpse animated by his lingering spirit and Lucasfilm later retconned him to be a zombie-like clone of Palpatine after the film's release). The only requirement for Palps to pass him Emperorship is killing Rey, although Ren is immediately suspicious of the other strings attached (including choking a guy in a hissyfit when that concern is voiced) and decides instead to recruit Rey again, this time as a co-Emperor.

Finn and Poe obtain information about a spy within the First Order (yeah, you know its fucking Hux even before they say there is a spy at all) while Rey gets visions during her training with Leia. The spy confirms that Palpatine is legit and the info about the fuckmassive deathfleet is legit, and Rey finds the Jedi texts contain notes from Luke about his search for that planet. They go to his last clue, a desert planet that isn't Tatooine and is the middle of a festival where they find Lando has been holed up enjoying himself since him and Luke traveled there. They are immediately spotted by the First Order and escape from them to find the ship of one of Palpatine's servants who had last been seen there. They fall into sinkholes around the ship created by giant tunneling worms, and find the skeleton of Sheev's boy as well as a Sith dagger. 3PO is programmed with the Sith language, but his programming from the Old Republic era forbids him from giving the translation to civilians. Rey manages to get the sand worms to leave them alone by using Force powers to heal one's wound, and they attempt to get the Sheev's servant's ship up and running before they are attacked by the First Order. Chewie is taken prisoner and Rey wrecks Kylo's TIE Fighter before the two engage in a Force tug of war to pull the transport Chewie is on, which ends in Rey accidentally Force Lightning it and causing it to explode when she becomes frustrated with the stalemate. Chewie is revealed to have been on another transport and is taken to Ren's flagship Star Destroyer while the heroes, instead of do something sensible like seek a Rebel leader who can give security clearance for 3PO's protocol (Leia's the obvious choice), they head to a planet under VERY Nazi-like occupation to find a droid technician who can hack 3PO's memory. They encounter a woman from Poe's past, revealing he was a former spice smuggler like Han until abandoning his crew (causing them to fall into debt and become bitter at him) to join the Resistance. She threatens to turn the group in to pay off their debt [[Mary Sue| but Rey kicks her ass, earning her respect and she takes them to the technician without further incident.]] The technician unlocks 3PO's memory at the cost of wiping him. The translation reveals the dagger is the key to finding the Sith navigation McGuffin they are looking for. During this BB-8 reactivates Sheev's servant's old droid, who doesn't do much.

The heroes proceed to board Ren's flagship with the help of a First Order officer's badge, and shoot their way through as they free Chewie. Rey and Ren have another linked vision where her parents are revealed to have attempted to hide her from her grandfather Palpatine, who wanted to merge the souls of himself and '''ALL''' other preceding Sith (presumably not Revan, since his redemption is canon) while he discovers they are on his ship and orders it put on lockdown. Rey is confronted in the hangar by Ren, who offers her to join him again. She refuses and the Falcon appears, the engines blowing away the Stormtroopers while Rey jumps aboard. The crew head to Endor after finding out from Sheev's servant's old droid that it was where he was going to go next (this is the only thing the droid does other than serve as a "pet the dog moment" for the cast a few times) where the Death Star wreckage of the disk and throne room landed, encountering a division of former child-soldier Stormtroopers like Finn who went AWOL. The dagger has a slide-out metal prong from the handle which perfectly lines up with the corridor leading to Sheev's throne room. The team work on repairing the Falcon while Rey presses on ahead, alone, to the Death Star wreckage. Once in the throne room a hidden door opens, revealing a sanctum full of crystal mirrors that are the same as the ones she saw in her vision in Force Awakens (the scene where she snaps her fingers and all the mirrored ones do as well). There she finds the Sith McGuffin and gets a "The Cave" vision of herself as a Sith with a red double-bladed lightsaber which she fights. Kylo is waiting for her in the throne room, and crushes the Sith McGuffin in his hand before informing her they are linked in the Force as one soul inhabiting two bodies and offering her again to be the Vader to her Palpatine which she again refuses. The two fight while Finn and one of the Stormtroopers try to rescue her. They fight their way onto the remnants of the Death Star hangar, reminiscent of Anakin and Obi-wan in Revenge Of The Sith with water instead of lava, before Ren freezes as he senses his mother start to die. This pause gives Rey time to grab his lightsaber and stab him before she freezes sensing Leia actually pass away. Rey uses the Force to heal him, then steals his TIE Fighter while Poe and Finn return to the Resistance base. Rey initially attempts to hide on Luke's monastery to let Palpatine's bloodline die with her, but after lighting Kylo's TIE on fire (so she's destroyed 2 of his personal TIE at this point) Luke appears as a Force ghost to tell her <strike>Rian Johnson</strike> he was wrong, and was motivated by fear when he tried to hide. He reveals that all the Jedi who came before are rooting for her, and tells her where Leia's lightsaber is hidden. He reveals she stopped her training because in a vision she saw that her son would be destroyed by the Dark Side, and a Light Side counterpart would take up her blade instead. Meanwhile, Kylo is visited by the memory of Han. The two reenact the scene from Force Awakens, only this time Kylo throws his lightsaber into the sea and renounces the name Kylo Ren to become simply Ben again. Meanwhile the First Order blow up Poe's home planet where the droid technician and Poe's old crew were, although they had managed to get offworld by that point. Also, R2-D2 restores C-3PO's memory wipe by finding a backup which contains everything from before the mission.

Luke lifts his X-Wing from the waves and Rey scavenges the Sith McGuffin from the flaming wreck of Kylo's ship. As she proceeds to the Sith planet she sends out a beacon to track her progress, giving the entire galaxy a map to the Sith fleet. Poe, now leader of the Resistance, sends Lando with the Falcon and Nien Nunb to gather any forces they can, all the ones who refused to aid them in The Last Jedi, while the rest of the Resistance gears up to attack Sheev's fleet before they can leave the storm cloud. The initial plan is to destroy the navigation device which orients them to the rest of the galaxy without which the fleet cannot leave, until the commander of the flagship (a former Imperial officer) realizes what they are doing and orders it to be shut down so his own ship could serve as the navigation for the rest. Rey confronts Sheev in a coliseum/throne room full of the Cultist parents of the personnel of the fleet (VD) and is informed of his plan to have her kill him so all the Sith could merge with her and rule as basically the God Emperor of Star Wars. She raises her lightsaber before using the strange wormhole Force connection thing they have to pass it to Ben, who had gotten there with a salvaged TIE from the Death Star wreckage and was being beaten by his former servants, the Knights Of Ren. Armed with Luke's old lightsaber he kills them and proceeds to the throne room. Ben arrives and the two attempt to fight him. He simply Force Pushes them back and forces them to kneel before draining a portion of their souls, the "two bodies one soul" thing apparently being a massive source of Force power he can heal himself with to rule in his own rejuvenated body again (but with Darth Maul eyes) rather than Rey's. Meanwhile, the ex-Stormtroopers and Resistance ground personnel lead by Finn land on the flagship Star Destroyer (its still in the atmosphere of the Sith planet, thus gravity and breathable air applies) and due to bringing goat-horse things from Endor are not affected by onboard EMP that would otherwise short out speeders and tanks (which is a thing from past canon, mostly comics and novels, which they use to explain why such a thing doesn't happen more often). Meanwhile, Lando appears with a fucking enormous fleet (remember the backstory that the New Republic didn't have a fleet, instead paying for every planet to have a militia of their own which would unite when there was a big enough threat? Well, JJ finally remembered because all those fucks show up alongside a neat little game of "spot that ship from the series you know" in a few shots). They begin attacking the superweapons underneath the Star Destroyers directly, causing chain reactions that blow the entire ship.

Ben is Force-pushed by Sheev into a pit as revenge for how Vader did the same thing to him before taunting the dying Rey and unleashing a MASSIVE Force Lightning storm which shorts out the fleet. While this is going on the spirits of all the dead Jedi (like pretty much anyone they could find to record a line from any of the past movies or shows, including Ahsoka; which is pretty lame since it means she was killed off-screen, with natural causes being unlikely since Ahsoka wouldn't have been 80 yet, and even that's below the average Togruta life expectancy, though this may not necessarily be the case according to Filoni) who inhabit her body the same way that Palpatine is currently full of all the Sith. Rey manages to stand and deflects his Force Lightning with Leia's lightsaber, which isn't enough until Ben manages to climb out of the pit and throw her Luke's lightsaber; with the two together she's able to walk close enough to Sheev for his Force Lightning to burn him, and despite this being the third fucking time this has happened he does not turn off the lightning and instead Raiders Of The Lost Ark's himself into a skeleton before blowing up and destroying not only himself but the spirits of all the past Sith. Despite Palpatine's plan being to possess Rey when she kills him, for some reason he doesn't do so. The Jedi spirits leave Rey and she dies, with the barely lingering on Ben healing her. They share a kiss (reminder that since Sheev created Anakin, they're basically cousins, and their relationship is so adversarial it makes Edward and Bella's from Twilight look healthy, something the novelization tries to claim is "purely platonic") before Ben dies. His body vanishes, as does Leia's. The Resistance/Militia fleet destroy all the Star Destroyers after Finn's ground crew hijacks one of the cannons of the flagship to shoot at the ship bridge, killing the last of the old Empire and First Order leadership.

The heroes return to the Resistance planet where they celebrate, scenes showing the rest of the galaxy shooting the last of the First Order Star Destroyers play, Chewie is given Han's old medal from A New Hope, and the ex-Stormtrooper leader is hinted to be Lando's daughter or grandaughter implying a spinoff with the two. After the celebrations Rey returns to Luke's old home on Tatooine where she buries Anakin and Leia's lightsabers, revealing she built her own from her Force vision only with yellow blades instead of red ones. An old woman who was a neighbor of Owen and Beru comments nobody had been to that place in years and asks Rey's name. Seeing the Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia, she tells the woman her name is Rey Skywalker. The End.

Because god knows this fandom can no longer agree on fucking anything anymore, there was immediately fan wars going on everywhere Star Wars fans are found. Fans accused haters of review bombing, those who hated the movie claimed the critic score (which, if you recall, is mostly people who liked The Last Jedi and hate this movie for doing a U-turn on it) vindicates them. The fan fighting probably won't ever end, since now we apparently have to reevaluate if A New Hope and the Kenner Star Wars toys were ever good in the first place because some contrarians now claim the prequels are the pinnacle of Star Wars. Whatever the case, Disney CEO Bog Iger resigned in the middle of the work week in late February 2020, indicating that the backlash and fan alienation had a deeper impact than anticipated.
</div>
</div>

==Expanded Universe==

It can be said what makes a franchise into a long term lasting thing is when a wealth of extra story and background is created that expands on the original story far beyond what there was. It could be argued Star Wars leads the race in this, as the sheer amount of extra novels, graphic novels and games based on Star Wars can and does overwhelm the ordinary fan.

===The original EU/Star Wars "Legends"===

[[Image: Choices_of_One_PB_art.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Before Cara, before Rey, before Ashoka, Nomi Sunrider or Padme... there was Mara Jade]]
The background has expanded into the distant past before the founding of the current Jedi and Sith orders and into the (not-quite-so) far future looking at the descendants of Luke Skywalker and other popular characters. Uniquely, especially considering [[Warhammer 40K|other]] [[Star Trek|franchises']] track records, the Star Wars Expanded Universe is <strike>remarkably</strike> <strike>sorta</strike> sometimes internally consistent, both with other sources within the universe and with the films themselves, at least in comparison to other comparable settings. Of course, it's got plenty of its own [[C. S. Goto|problem children]] that slipped through, and the [[skub]] mine of it all isn't much shallower than that of 40K. Good portions of it do hold up well, largely due to the efforts of Lucas' company's continuity department leaning on everyone to hold it together. One thing that greatly helps is continuity books and articles aren't afraid to make small retcons to make even the most obscure and shitty sources (like that terrible PS1 fighting game) seem like part of an organized plot. Particularly well-loved parts include characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn (a rare alien officer in the Empire and popular enough that Disney brought him back to the canon from the EU) and Mara Jade (a Force-using former agent of Emperor Palpatine who later turned good, became a Jedi Master, married Luke and had a son with him) - interestingly both were created by the same author [[Timothy Zahn]].

Upon their acquisition, Disney said "fuck it" and threw out everything but the films and the Clone Wars cartoons. Some popular old stuff got mentions or appearances (and Thrawn got to be a major character), but the overall quality is even lower than the old EU. What was set up as a major book contains phrases like "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air" and random virtue signalling. As though to top the previous, Disney literally published a book with an entire chapter about mass wedding farts (Yes. Really.). The only good stuff is from established EU authors writing stuff far away from era of the Disney films.

The [[rage]] over the EU's scrapping was major among many fans of it, but for all Disney's shortcomings, they were in a tight spot. Towards the end all that continuity and consistency got thrown out the airlock for increasingly dumb and disjointed narratives and garbled plot threads to the point that the Star Wars logo was just about as much a sign of quality as the Nintendo approval stamp on shitty SNES games.

Another problem was that Disney is mostly family-firendly, and some of the Star Wars EU could get really dark. As in Warhammer 40k levels of grimdark. Examples of this are the invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong - forcenull space-Druchii (no no, not Comorrites though they have the pain and body modification fetishes for it, space-'''Druchii''', riding enslaved tyranid bioships) from another galaxy, Mnggal-Mnggal - mindraping gelatin lost on its way to Star Trek, and Abeloth - an ancient (she predates the Jedi and the Sith) yandere Force entity more like something from the Cthulhu Mythos and is so dangerous the Jedi and the Sith '''joined forces''' to fight her. It's difficult to envision how Disney could have kept the EU when even before all that it was struggling to find a market beyond the most [[neckbeards|dedicated fans]].

===The Books===

'''The Good EU'''
[[Image: Heir-to-the-empire-cover.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Heir to the Empire (1991): The book that started it all]]
* '''The Thrawn Trilogy''': The origination point for the EU, and focuses on the conflict with the Imperial remnants left over after RotJ. Named for the main villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, who went on to become one of Star Wars most well-loved characters. Basically the story "The Force Awakens" wishes it was. Also introduced Mara Jade, a sexy redhead that's everything Disney wishes Rey was and more.
* '''The Han Solo Adventures''': Star's End was the second spinoff book written and the first good one. Han and Chewie are trying to get some work done on the Falcon and wind up having to bust out some political prisoners to pay for it. Would have made for a better film than ''Solo'' did.
* '''Shadows of the Empire''': Shadows is set between ESB and RotJ and fills in the details of getting the Death Star II's plans, finding out where Han was taken, Luke building his own saber, etc by the introduction of another bounty hunter by the name of Dash Rendar. The Special Edition rerelease of ''A New Hope'' added the Outrider to the background of one scene. Most notable for the fact that it was also adapted into a video game for the N64 and PC.
*'''The Darth Bane Trilogy''': The origin of the Rule of Two for the Sith, along with a compelling protagonist and his apprentice.
* '''Revenge of the Sith''': The novelization is actually considered a serious improvement over the movie itself.

'''The Bad EU'''
* '''Jedi Academy Trilogy''': Luke sets up his academy on Yavin IV and tries to teach [[Rage|Kyp Durron]]. Imperial remnant superweapons hit ludicrous territory with the sun crusher. This was the beginning of Kevin J Anderson hammering out a couple dozen Star Wars books over about four years.
* '''Young Jedi Knights Series''': Set between Jedi Academy and New Jedi Order, mostly follows Han & Leia's kids.
* '''I, Jedi''': A retelling of the Jedi Academy Trilogy (see above) with more of Corran Horn from the first set of X-Wing books. Less derp in general but significantly more [[Mary Sue]]age of Horn.
* '''Legacy of the Force''': The survivors of the Yuuzhan Vong War are trying to rebuild the galaxy, but Jacen Solo turns Sith and becomes the main villain. The book series is infamous for nearly killing the Star Wars EU, threatening the franchise and issues between various writers years before Disney went down the same road (Jacen Solo was also a major influence for Kylo Ren). The biggest complaints were Jacen killing Mara, the heroes becoming idiots whenever they could've stopped the villains, poor dialogue, long-winded writing and the story being overstuffed with allusions to post 9/11 United States.

'''The [[Skub]] EU'''
[[Image: Yuuzhan-vong-eu2_bg.jpg|right|200px|thumb|The Yuuzhan Vong, [[Skub|either badass and interesting or edgy and canon-defiling villains]]]]
* '''New Jedi Order''': The longest-running (19 books long) and most divisive story of the EU. Luke's married to Mara and they're rebuilding the Jedi Order while Han and Leia are trying to reconcile the New Republic and Imperial Remnants. Han and Leia are also raising three kids and Mara's got a terminal illness. Then extragalactic aliens called Yuuzhan Vong - [[Imperium of Man|religious fanatics]] with [[Tyranids|organic technology]], a thing for [[Dark Eldar|pain and body modification]] along with [[Culexus|partial immunity to The Force]] - start a war to conquer the Star Wars Galaxy. Chewie dies Majora's Mask style, Mara's illness is cured and she gives birth to Ben Skywalker, the Vong take over Coruscant, lots is learned about the Force and the bodycount goes so high it could give Warhammer 40k a run for its money (365 TRILLION; only the War in Heaven or the Fall of the Eldar had anywhere near that many deaths in one event). A real love-it-or-hate-it series, some parts were good, some were bad and some were weird.
* '''Dark Empire''': Palpatine's back to save a dying franchise decades before Disney tried it. He even uses clone bodies to do so (but unlike Disney, Dark Horse didn't flip-flop on the lore), wrecks a fleet of enemy ships using the Force and at some point has his power reflected back at him. Starts off good, falls apart fast. Known for its love-it-or-hate-it artstyle and dialogue.
* '''Courtship of Princess Leia''': Deals with another Imperial remnant. This one has force witches. It's also ''really'' silly. If you like that, raise this higher. If not, it might even drop lower.
* '''Fate of the Jedi''': People are growing dissatisfied with the Jedi Order following LotF. Luke, Ben and the remaining Jedi are trying to keep the Jedi Order in check while several Jedi are wracked with a mysterious psychosis and a ancient Sith Tribe emerges from hiding. Han and Leia are looking after the political side of things while also becoming grandparents. Things take a turn for cosmic horror when a yandere, Force-using eldritch abomination who could doom the galaxy escapes her prison. The Sith apprentice Vestara rises through the ranks and finds herself in a Catwoman/Batman situation with Ben Skywalker. While being an OoM better than the preceding trilogy, FotJ has a very divided opinion among SW fans.

=== Disney Canon ===
[[Image:Star_Wars_Disney_Princesses.jpg|right|400px|thumb|Love it or hate it, they are now official ''Disney Princesses''.]]
It's still [[skub|debatable]] whether or not the new Canon holds up to the old EU, or learns to fix the problems that plagued it. We probably won't see what comes of it for decades to come. Disney Canon, as of 2020, seems to largely be built around the nine main movies (of course), with shows like Rebels and Clone Wars alongside anthology movies fleshing out stories that had been told in comics and books back before the Disney buy-up, but can now be seen on film.

A curious thing that has begun happening: Certain elements of the old EU is slipping into the Disney Canon. Plotlines like the Emperor returning, the Death Star plans heist and Han's path to become the smuggler we know him as all have bits and pieces from EU canon in them. In some cases, whole characters are ported in; the best example is Admiral Thrawn, who appears in Rebels. Other times, popular characters has their traits or stories ported into new ones (Finn and Cassian are both expies of Kyle Katarn, for example). This gives some credence to the argument that Lucasfilms and Disney wanted to wipe the slate with all the stories that had been told in the EU, so they could create their own, fully realized canon Star Wars setting that one could make movies - ''many'' movies - from. Considering the amount of shitty fan-fiction-esque stories the EU had, this may be for the best, but of course, storylines that people have loved for ages are also thrown out with the bathwater.

Now. Detractors of Disney-era Star Wars often talk loads about how the sequel trilogy invalidates the original trilogy, or how Disney screwed over Luke or ignored cool characters like Kyle Katarn. These are semi-valid arguments of course, but they ignore some of the biggest issues with the EU originally - it wasn't sponsored by George Lucas and Lucasfilms. They were sponsored fan-fiction in a sense, semi-canon from the outset and not really something that could be considered a part of the Star Wars setting, though George Lucas did work with the writers to a point, such as with the New Jedi Order book series (he gave them permission to kill off Chewbacca in the story). In fact, George never really considered them real stories; more like a parallel universe of his own Star Wars works. He accepted it because they bring in the big bucks when people would beg to have the official Star Wars logo on anything they produced.

That, and the sequel trilogy, underwhelming as it may be, was George's idea in broad strokes. The series was always going to have a sequel trilogy, and while the outcome isn't exactly what he (or we) wanted, quite a lot of it is. Luke being an exile on a far-away planet, who has to be roused to fight by a new, female Jedi? George's idea, not Disney's. A son of Han and Leia struggling with the Dark Side? Also George's idea (though Disney lifted a lot form the original version - Jacen Solo - for Kylo Ren). If anything, much of the direction comes from Lucasfilms; Disney just wants the movie to sell well. It's similar with Marvel nowadays.

So for better or worse, the Disney Canon is the first time the wider setting of Star Wars beyond the series and movies have become irrevocably canon, rather than "kinda-sorta-canon". Much of what we've gotten that is new is based roughly on George's own work as well. Remember this when discussing EU vs Disney in Star Wars - Either setting is cool for their own reasons, but the Mouse got little to do with it - and if you don't like it, bring it up with big man Lucas. Whatever the case, with Bob Iger's resignation as CEO from Disney (likely not on his terms, as he stated multiple times he would retire in 2021), things are changing (for better or worse).

==Star Wars:The Television Shows==
===Star Wars:The Clone Wars===
Technically, there are two series called similar titles. The first was 2004's ''Star Wars: Clone Wars'', an animated miniseries made by Genndy Tartakovsky (He of Dexter's Lab and [[Samurai Jack]] fame) chronicling, among other things, the titular Clone Wars and introducing a much more sinister General Grievous to the world.

But then we have ''The Clone Wars'', a CGI animated series (and tie-in movie) that we'll be talking about more and contributed more to the EU. One of the most universally known and loved parts of Star Wars, most fans worth their action figures and limited edition movie sets have watched the show and have an opinion on it one way or another. Some of the most notable characteristics are:

* The Clone Troopers are fleshed out,and we see that they are manly motherfuckers who make Guardsmen's balls of steel look like the cardboard their armor is made out of (seriously, in the movie, they literally charge straight into close combat with ''giant armored walkers with large guns'' and jump off roofs to get top of them to shoot them point blank, and punch droids in the face)
* Anakin Skywalker is actually a good, fleshed out character, with a good voice actor and shows his descent to child-murdering Force-choking asshat wasn't just him going 'welp, guess I'll fall to the Dark Side.' There was a fair amount of bad-cop “it was him or me” murder to get there.
* Introduces Ashoka Tano, a major character who's a female Togruta Jedi that's well-written, non-OP, non-Mary Sue and doesn't invalidate characters from the movies. Starts off a bit annoying in the Clone Wars movie, but manages to do something truly special: she ''learns''. Over the course of Clone Wars and Rebels, Ashoka probably has the most character development out of any other Star Wars character.
* Obi-Wan being a sexy one-liner spouting sarcastic badass.
* And many others.

However, there were some pretty derp moments too, such as

* Babysitting episode/movie.
* D-squad, where a bunch of droids become heroes of the Republic.
* Mandalore and how it's fluff was basically screwed 180 degrees, and then some.
* Droids were comic relief of the first and second seasons. It was annoying.

All in all, it was an good show that took some time to find it's feet.

After many years, a seventh season was been announced in an attempt to take away from ''The Last Jedi'' being shit and add ''something'' to the empty Disney Plus lineup. At least some of the episodes will be ones that were in production when the show ended. It promptly disappeared after that announcement for a couple years till it was announced it's coming out in 2019.

===Star Wars: Rebels===
[[Image:WomanYellingAtLothcat.jpeg|right|400px|thumb|''Stop fooling our plan, you rebel scum!'']]
Now that Disney owns Star Wars they can't go a season without something new to run on Disney XD, so after ''The Clone Wars'' ended they needed a series to milk episodes out of and launched ''Rebels''. ''Rebels'' is set a few years before ''A New Hope'' and covers the early formation of the rebellion from the perspective of one cell focused on the planet Lothal. If you liked ''Rogue One'' but thought it should be about 25 hours long and done in cartoony CGI then this is the show for you.

So what did we see in ''Rebels''?

* Grand Admiral Thrawn makes his debut in Disney Star Wars, along with the TIE Defender project. The character doesn’t lose much in the translation, and later on is arguably treated better than the source.
* The bearded old guy in the Endor strike team in RotJ turns out to be Captain Rex. Fan theory at first, later confirmed.
* You CAN [[combi-weapon]] a lightsaber and a blaster, and it's OP as shit
* Force wolves (no, not [[Rune Priest|those force wolves]])
* [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones-style]] Mandos (Krownest is pretty much Space-Winterfell).
* Imperial Inquisitors. Sure they don’t last long, but they were intimidating while they were, and it planted the seed that was used elsewhere.
* Some good appearances by Darth Vader.

So about the wolves... ''Rebels'' turns the force mysticism up past 11. Forget just being precog space monks with laser swords; as far as ''Rebels'' is concerned the Jedi are [[craftworld]] [[eldar]] without the racism. Rebels picks up the torch of the Clone Wars “Force Gods” and mixes in some of the straight-up fantasy shit from the Lucas era novels and the KOTOR/Old Republic Jedi philosophy schools and heresies beyond just “Light good, Dark bad”.

However, there were levels of derp that we got to see in this show, such as the following:

* Since this is a Disney cartoon, the bad guys can't have even a temporary victory. This changes Thrawn and the other Imperials from an imposing force to [[Abbadon|cartoon villains]], although Rebels villains manage to stay intimidating more than Grievous did in Clone Wars.
* Battles slower paced than a Death Guard movement phase. Enjoy characters having full conversations in cover-based shooting when everyone has Stormtrooper aim.
* Lightsabers the shape of toothpicks.
* [[Bullshit|Helicopter lightsabers]]
* Complete bipolarity in tone. This can create some great moments, but invariably ruins the mood episode by episode, or between the A and B plots.
* Iron Squadron. Just...fucking [[Rage|Iron Squadron]]
* Star Destroyers look terrible, mostly due to their bridge towers being way taller than they should be.

All in all, it depends on your preference.

Since the show does have a fair amount of dedicated fans, <strike>likely</strike> possibly more than the sequel trilogy itself, Disney has made a habit of planting Easter Egg references to Rebels in basically everything moving forward, usually in the form of an appearance by the iconic ship The Ghost or the friendly-ish space pirate character Hondo Ohnaka.

===Star Wars: Resistance===
Annnd they had to go and change things again. With ''Rebels'' coming to a close and a burning need to keep Star Wars on their lineup, Disney had a choice: find a new plot and setting for a formula and art style that had produced two successful multi-season shows, or throw it all out and start from scratch. Remember, this is Disney we're talking about, the company that once [[Fail|paid a quarter billion dollars to fire the producer who made ''The Little Mermaid'', ''Beauty and the Beast'', ''Aladdin'', and ''The Lion King'']] only for him to go and [[profit|found Dreamworks]] out of spite.

Like its predecessor, ''Star Wars: Resistance'' sets itself up as a prequel to a trilogy, in this case following the early days of the Resistance in its fight against the First Order. Where it differs from ''Rebels'' is that ''Resistance'' is playing the warm up act for a trilogy that nobody likes. On top of which, the creators abandoned the 3D style that ''Rebels'' inherited from ''The Clone Wars'', and replaced it with a cel style that's half ''Treasure Planet'', half ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' and all ''RWBY''.

To be blunt, this show is 100% pure crystal derp. Our star is Kazuda Xiono, a manic depressive who literally fanboy-ed his way into being a spy under the cover story of being a mechanic, two jobs he is not qualified for. This kid is the Invader Zim of Star Wars. Filling out the cast we have the original only cockney girl in space, an autistic alien, their widower boss who is definitely gonna die, D.Va and her ex-imperial officer dad, and BB-8. Poe Dameron shows up regularly so he can be Ace Fucking Rimmer without having to compete against Rey for the TOP SUE trophy. Reception was so terrible it was confirmed canceled at 2 seasons before the second season even started.

Part of the problem with ''Resistance'' is that the First Order has a doomfort that can frag planets across the galaxy, yet has to resort to hiring pirates to encourage settlements into accepting the First Order's protection racket. Palpy's empire was a model of efficient, heavy handed governance; its evil intent veiled from the masses who mostly resent it for bringing order. The First Order on the other hand is basically just Cobra Command, a font of evil hamstrung by flailing incompetence. As mentioned earlier, the backstory for the Resistance and First Order is basically that the First Order are a mobile pirate fleet with one untested secret base weapon lead by old farts of dubious actual leadership abilities from the Empire and their fanatical children with grunts made up of brainwashed child soldiers kidnapped from pioneer settlements while the Resistance is just a tiny militia that is so poorly funded they don’t even qualify as a single fleet since their few outdated capital ships are crewed by outdated droids and they don’t even have enough fighters to protect them, but rather than depict the potentially interesting dynamic this suggests the series just tries to be Rebels again, the same path the movies took even though at this point both factions are even smaller than they were in the movies.

===Star Wars: The Mandalorian===

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti western's so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up. Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well know spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Adeptus_Arbites|Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way" their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times, (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing). The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand awesome.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Jedi''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

==Wookieepedia==
One of the largest fan wikis ever created, this bad boy is extensively cited, has enormous variety, and has page upon page of talk. It was if Lexicanum, the 40k fan wiki, and our own glorious site were fused into a terrible beast.

==Impact on 1d4chan and associated games etc==

Star Wars has had subtle and clear impacts on a number of other franchises and genres and it can be ''incredibly'' hard to gauge the extent of it all. Certainly it didn't create the concepts of sci-fi, space battles, sweeping storylines, and a blending of mystical and scientific ideas, but it certainly popularized them during the years of the original trilogy and influenced many people that would go on to have interests in sci-fi, fantasy and epic adventure today.

Hell, look me in the eye and tell me that the lightsaber didn't give us the [[power weapon]]. But then again, magic weapons.
==Sabacc and Pazaak==
A rather unusual entry here but it's well in line, Sabacc is an actual tabletop card game from the Star Wars universe which is basically a hybrid of Poker and Blackjack. A Sabacc Deck has 76 cards, most of which in four suits of 16 cards numbered one to 16, plus sixteen wildcards in two sets with values that were either negative or (in the case of the Idiot) Zero. The goal of the game is to have a set of three cards who's total as close as possible to, but not over, 23 or -23. If you got 23/-23 (Pure Sabacc) which could only be beaten by an Idiot's Array (One Idiot, a two and a three, thus 23). The stakes are raised every cycle until the cards go down or one player is left standing who gets the pot.

The notable thing about Sabacc that sets it apart from real world card games is that the Cards can change value every turn. A Pure Sabacc can easily become an instant lose 25 and an absolutely lousy hand can become an Idiot's Array. They can be stabilized to fix their value, but everyone knows when you do so. This feature has so far prevented Sabacc from being released in tabletop form as of yet. ''(Of course, there are ways to deal with this, such as simply re-dealing unfixed cards, but never let it be said that nerds will choose practicality over purity.)''

In universe, Han Solo won the Millenium Falcon off Lando in a game of Sabacc.

Pazaak is an older game from an in-universe perspective, similar to Blackjack but its player versus player rather than player versus dealer and also has some aspects of a collectible card game. Goal of the game is to raise cards from the main deck until their total value is 20 or they can also choose to stand if they get close but don't want to risk it. Best out of five wins.

CCG-aspect of Pazaak comes from the sidedeck: both players collect ten cards for their side deck and then randomly take four cards from their side deck to their hand in the beginning of the game. Hand cards are used to either lower or raise the total value: so if the player raises cards from the main deck to the total value of 25, they can prevent dropping out if they have a -5 card or higher in their hand.
Cards which only either raise or lower the value are the most common of the side cards.
More rarer are cards which can be used to both raise and lower the value.
Then there are flip cards, which change certain main deck cards on the table to negative ones. So if the player plays a 2&4 flip card, all 2:s and 4:s on the table become -2:s and -4:s. Flip cards exist in 2&4:s and 3&6:s.
Then there is the double card, which doubles the value of the last played card. So if the player raises a 5 from the main deck, playing the double card would turn it into a 10.
Finally, the rarest side deck card is the tiebreaker, which grants the player a win if the game would otherwise end in a tie.

==Tabletop games for Star Wars==

=== Role-playing Games ===

[[West End Games]] made a Star Wars [[role-playing game]] called [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] AKA '''Star Wars D6'''. Like many West End products, it's a good game with the great misfortune of being published by West End games.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] picked up the license later and made two distinct RPGs based on their [[d20 System]], called [[Star Wars D20]] (imaginatively). Could be fun, but generally broken as hell, much like [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|its parent game]]. It was then utterly revised that into what they called the '''Saga Edition''', which is relatively balanced and pretty good.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars Roleplaying Game|a whole line of Star Wars-themed RPGs]], each one focusing on a specific style of play. You want to play a bunch of scruffy space outlaws (Edge of the Empire), members of the nascent Rebellion (Age of Rebellion), or exiled Jedi Knights (Force and Dedtiny), then they got you covered. Unlike their [[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]] games, which are all ''juuuuust'' different enough from one another to completely buttfuck any attempts at blending, all three gamelines use identical mechanics and are fully cross-compatible. Uses symbol-counting [[dice pool]]s with ludicrously overpriced custom dice.
Like the other RPGs they decided with the retardedly similar name, and thus this one is sometimes called '''Star Wars FFG''' to avoid confusion.

FFG have kept milking the franchise and in summer 2017, decided to [[Necromancer | reanimate]] the [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] with a "30th Year Anniversary Edition" print of the original game. It '''''finally''''' shipped in July 2018 after spending a year in limbo.

=== Card Games ===

The big [[card game]] set in the Star Wars universe is the [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]. It's no longer produced by Decipher, but there is still a sufficiently large player community to organize annual tournaments, rule on cards, and so on. SWCCG was radically different from the norm of card games, being divided into light and dark side cards with different backings, with light and dark always playing against each other. For tournament play a player would need both a light and dark deck.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] made the [[Star Wars Trading Card Game]].

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars: The Card Game]].

Obviously, nobody is capable of creating a Star Wars card game with an interesting name.

Aside from the real, physical, games there was also ''Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game''. It was a real, functioning, card game within the MMO that used all virtual cards. Unfortunately no server emulators have implemented it yet.

=== Miniature Games ===
[[Wizards of the Coast]] did a tabletop battles game imaginatively called Star Wars: Miniatures, based on an extremely dumbed down version of the D&D ruleset. The figures were meant to tie in with the Saga edition RPG, it wasn't terrible on its own, just impossible to collect for competitive play since figures came in random booster packs so you never know what you were getting for what faction. Who could possibly stand for that?

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is producing the [[X-Wing]] miniatures game based on individual starfighter combat (because, let's be honest, that's what ''Star'' Wars is all about). They have also released [[Star Wars: Armada]] which is a larger scale "fleet" combat simulator, using capital ships and squadrons of starfighters.

'''Star Wars: Imperial Assault'''

The latest [[Fantasy Flight Games]] addition to its Star Wars related games is a mix between a miniature board game and a skirmish wargame. It has two play modes:

One for campaign play where 1-4 players control a team of Rebel heroes and another player has the role of the DM, who controls the Imperial forces. The campaign, as the name suggests, focuses on character personalization, xp gain and the like, which you can find in any light RPG-esque (board)game. The main goal is to get a few friends together and casually play through the missions. Think of it as a Star Wars version of the original [[Hero Quest]].

The other play mode is skirmish play, where two players each get to assemble a team of miniatures plus a command deck (cards that have specific effects when played) and play against each other in an open-play scenario. The play area is still very limited to a few game tiles (as in a campaign mission) but players are free to bring whatever they want (with a few limitations of course). The skirmish part of Imperial assault is as close as you can get to an actual Star Wars skirmish wargame, but it is a missed opportunity from Fantasy Flight to create a true skirmish wargame (ala [[Infinity (wargame)|Infinity]]), not based on tiles and so confined spaces. Who knows what they have plans for though...

'''Star Wars Legion'''

And Fantasy Flight have now given us a fully fledged wargame, complete with AT-ST in the first wave. (They're 32mm scale, which means [[Games Workshop|no reusing your Imperial Assault miniatures]].) Legion has an integrated turn system, and the usual FF custom dice and forest worth of dead trees in cards and tokens that will be familiar to X-Wing and Armada players. The miniatures are PVC, reasonably detailed, easy to assemble pieces. A standard battle is 800 points, which could be anywhere from half a dozen to 16 units on the field, with an average army fielding 8-12 units comprising 30-ish models.

=== Board Games ===

The most famous and arguably best one is [[Star Wars: Rebellion]], an asymmetric two-player game that plays through the Original Trilogy in a wargame/worker placement-esque game. The Empire player must expand their already huge military base over the galaxy to build more ships and huge superweapons while searching for the Rebel Base, while the Rebels do their best to bite them in their heel, obscuring their movements and annoying the Empire until they have enough support to overthrow the Empire. As a [[Fantasy Flight Games|FFG]] boardgame, it's filled with a ludicrous amount of bits and pieces (including sweet models of Star Destroyers, Death Stars and Calamari Cruisers), as well as the trademark filled-with-small-exceptions ruleset. It's pretty sweet and still considered one of the best board games of its kind.

=== Card Miniature Games ===

In the late 00's, WizKids produced a short lived construct-able miniatures Star Wars game based on their styrene card system for Pirates of the Spanish Main. Although the game sold well, when NECA bought WizKids from Topps the rights did not transfer and it went out of print.

==Video Games for Star Wars==

To put it bluntly, every game which could possibly have ''Star Wars'' slapped onto it, exists. Flight simulators. Racers. Rail shooters. Doom clones. MMOs. Age of Empires reskins. Hell, there's even a Kinect variety game. Here's a few standouts...

* '''Knights of the Old Republic''': A pair of single player RPGs depicting a Sith war several thousand years before ''A New Hope''. KotOR is widely regarded as the best Star Wars video game ever, and was the framework for BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' series. Of all the Legends stuff, KotOR appears to still be in good standing with Disney since they continue to borrow from it. The sequel by Obsidian was the original skubtastic take on the franchise TLJ wanted to be but failed miserably. Got an MMO simply called "Old Republic" (since you can play as things other than Jedi and Sith) that is the sequel, which had a very rough start but stabilized enough to still survive to this day somehow). Possibly still canon in the Disney continuity since a lot of things get borrowed or referenced from it. Also the only thing in the EU to still receive new content.

* '''Jedi Knight:''' A series that started of as an early FPS named Dark Forces (so early that it was the time when FPS games were still known as [[Doom]]-clones) but Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had the protagonist become a Jedi. The Dark Forces name was dropped in favor of Jedi Knight after this. The series combines surprisingly deep lightsaber combat with standard shooting, though the levels can get very mazy at times. Introduced Kyle Katarn, one of the most popular characters from EU. Unfortunately, there has not been a new game since 2003's ''Jedi Academy'' and likely will never be thanks to Disney.

* '''Republic Commando''': An FPS that has the player command a squad of commandos. Its a great shooter but unfortunately, it never received a sequel and to make things worse, ended on a cliffhanger. The second act of the game, set entirely on a drifting Acclamator-class assault ship is particularly memorable and highly atmospheric. If one can look past outdated graphics, its worth trying out for anyone who wants a good FPS experience.

* '''Empire at War''': Made by the original developers of [[Command and Conquer]], it is the most notable strategy game to have come out of Star Wars. Notable for featuring three different modes of play: ground battles, space battles and galactic conquest map. Though ground battles are a bit meh, the space battles are great and the galactic conquest is certainly more interesting than only playing random skirmish matches. Even though its over 10 years old, it has a very active modding community. Republic at War, which changes the games Galactic Civil War setting to Clone Wars and Thrawns Revenge, set much further into the Galactic Civil War than portrayed in the films, are particularly great. There is also a remake mod in the works, aiming to bring the game up to modern standards in terms of visuals, sound and UI and the results do look good. Unfortunately, no great 40k mod.

* '''Star Wars Galaxies''': An early MMO, launched after ''Everquest'' but before ''WoW''. Galaxies is noteworthy for making force powers a prestige achievement requiring enormous in-game effort to unlock. The first expansion pack added a subgame that's a pretty solid flight game in its own right and the game eventually added an original, fully playable, trading card game that sadly has not yet been implemented in any simulator. Then ''World of Warcraft'' hit, Sony panicked and made Jedi a starting class and replaced the skill system with massive level grind, and offered refunds to the raging army of neckbeards. Subscription numbers tanked and never recovered. It would effectively be replaced by ''The Old Republic'', an MMO using the acclaimed KotOR setting. Like most "dead" MMOs that people loved it still lives on through illegal private servers (don't worry, the guys providing it would get busted, not people playing on it).

* '''X-Wing (and TIE Fighter)''': A series of ''Wing Commander'' clones released in the 90's. While badly dated today, they were the best fighter sims of their time, and if you can get past the highly primitive graphics some people still consider them to be the best to this day. Interestingly, TIE Fighter is largely seen as the best of the series while the N64 era Rogue Squadron and Shadows Of The Empire games are seen as being far more visually modern but largely inferior sequels. Did we mention you had to use a flight stick controller basically made for these games to really do well at these?

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2005)''': Not to be confused with the one released by EA in 2017. Solid game from the new-defunct Pandemic studio (fuck you, EA) in 2005 told from the perspective of a clone trooper that survived all the way up to the battle of Hoth, with a very down to earth boots on the ground approach. Also, just being thrown into random matches as a soldier because fun. Despite some issues, it remains the high point of the Battlefront series as well as the entire PS2 era, and on PC still has fans via an active modding community to this day. There is of course also the original one but the second one pretty much completely overshadowed it.

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)''': The one by EA. You've probably heard everything important. An absolute mess at launch due to its lootbox-heavy progression system, so much so that it started discussion even on government level about lootboxes that continues to this day. A comment by EA that became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Yet despite all this, two years later, the game is arguably one of the best Star Wars experiences one can have and an Anakin-level redemption story. Like the previous Battlefront II, it completely overshadowed its predecessor.

* '''Jedi: Fallen Order''': It took them years but finally, EA managed to deliver a Star Wars game that is great on launch without cramming it with e-transactions. Its plot focuses on an unfortunate Jedi renegade between ''Revenge'' and ''A New Hope'' who's on the hunt for a hidden database that might document all the Force-sensitive individuals in the galaxy. A game inspired primarily by games such as Dark Souls and Uncharted, its a great action-adventure game in its own right and a must-play for any Star Wars fan.

* '''Monopoly Star Wars''': Its Star Wars Monopoly. With 90's FMV that plays for every square you land on. On floppy disks. Considered fucking amazing at the time, its too strange and tabletop to not mention. Also one of the last pre-Prequel things released.

* '''Super Star Wars''': A heavily modified retelling of the original trilogy (what, you don't remember how Luke chased down the Sandcrawler and murdered all the Jawas as well as their giant rat god in order to rescue R2-D2?) that was one of the ways to say "hard as fuck" by namedropping a game prior to Dark Souls existing. Amusing for the insanity of the added content in order to make a platformer sidescrolling beat'em'up as well as how neckbeardy you have to be to punish yourself trying to beat it without cheating.

* '''Star Wars: Yoda Stories''': A game geared for kids, released the same year as Monopoly above. Players play as Luke sometime after Empire Strikes Back, although an odd alternate version where Han sometimes is free from carbonite and Boba Fett and sometimes is not. They are assigned a quest by Yoda which requires them to traverse one or more procedurally generated planets doing whatever odd crap Yoda felt was necessary, including sometimes fighting Vader. Recieved middling scores as a PC release, with some individuals HATING the game and using it as a benchmark for how much they hate something when comparing the two, although to be fair that is because distributors tried to sell it like a full game when in reality its supposed to just be freebie software that came with other purchases and was meant to go with Solitaire and space pinball as default games on a computer to waste time with. It has lapsed into obscurity thanks to even those reviewers largely being forgotten on the modern internet. Noteworthy for being played on a grid with simultaneous turn-based movement with all enemies and NPCs on a screen, feeling very much like a tabletop game at times. A simple puzzle game, where getting blocked in a corner without enough space to pass the time by an idiot NPC is more dangerous than any foe.

*'''Shadows of the Empire''': Made on the Nintendo 64 and Windows PC, you play as Dash Rendar, a scoundrel in a ship like Han Solo working for the Rebellion. Takes place during Episode V as a side story. Despite being much beloved by fans for years and years, it's sadly not aged well thanks to the rather peculiar control scheme of the N64 and the graphics not having aged like cheap cheese in the sun. Main enemy of the game is a xeno named Xisor who is just a real uppity crime boss (and apparently a prince). This game has an absolute great opening first part where you're flying in a Snowspeeder on Hoth killing Imperials left and right while trying to use the cables to crash the AT-ATs like in the movie. After that the game begins to kinda just carry on with awkward controls.

==Assorted list of Awesome From Star Wars==
* Fucking ''[[Lightsaber|Lightsabers!]]''
* The fucking [[Approved music|OST]]
* What is likely the greatest duel in cinematic history, that takes place on a [[Death World|lava planet.]]
* Deathly Stormtroopers, heroic Clonetroopers or sinister First Order troopers; whatever they're called, stormtroopers are awesome!
* Darth Vader whenever he gets a speaking line or to murder rebel scum - that is to say, all the time.
* Darth Maul in both The Phantom Menace and TCW.
* Lightsaber Rifles
* The entirety of the Umbara campaign, where <s>Imperial Guardsmen</s> Clone Troopers die in the dozens attempting to win some godforsaken planet, earning them balls of titanium that make the guard look ba- {{BLAM| '''*BLAM*''' Heresy!}}
* 97% of the Creatures.
* 98% of the Starfighter designs.
* Costumes that mix about every possible inspiration, Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese, Ancient Greece and Rome, Elizabethan, Moebius or Pulp Sci-Fi from the 60's, giving the whole series a distinctive style and gives Padme Amidala an excuse to show off with all her dresses.
* Boba and Jango Fett and the rest of the Mandalorians.
* KOTOR (both games) plot making you think this shit is actually logical and has so much philosophical background. One of the creepiest depictions of the Universe. Everything is brutal, with big vibrating knives, blood, those machines for Sith snuff movies, more blood, bastards, badass bastards and so on. Everything while somebody is talking with you about existence.
* Our saviour Lord Revan. He's like if [[Horus|fucking Horus]] just became [[Big Bad Evil Guy|fucking bad]] (but not that [[Erebus|bad]]) to fucking destroy the [[Chaos Gods|Dark Gods]] so he can solve his daddy issues.
**but he's more virile, deadly, powerful, charismatic and cool.
* Lightsabers.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi.
* The High Ground.
* TIE fighters. They have the most distinctive scream of any fighter in cinematic history that just yells "I'm evil!". Tell me I'm wrong. I'll wait.
** The fact that they managed to do that using what is essentially a shitty visual pun.
* Most of Episode 3.
* The entirety of Anakin's story, especially when you add the Clone Wars and prequels. While you're at it, watch CinemaWins' perspective on it the series.
* Admiral Ackbar the Memeable!
* Palpatine getting into some Tzeentchian-level scheming and backstabbing in order to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic.
* Grand Admiral Thrawn: So awesome that he rose to a high rank in the anthropocentric Empire despite being an alien and was one of the first (and rare few) things to be imported straight from Legends to Disney.
* Imperial Pilots get a mention, seeing as they fly literal garbage fighters against superior rebel fighters. By garbage, we mean that even the Imperium have better fighter designs than these guys. At least Imperial fighters conserve the life of the fucking pilot.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi again.
* Princess, later Senator Leia Organa; the original badass-yet-hot boss lady in space. Ends up leading two separate, successful underground freedom movements against impossible odds. Did we mention she's a Jedi in both canons?
* Han Solo, who is so badass that hot Leia falls in love. He has the smuggler's best friend, a Wookie, who is also the worst opponent you can face in a [[Chess|Dejarik match]].
* Just... Star Destroyers. When you see a huge, imposing warship from an evil Empire, this is the granddaddy they all look up to.
* Oh, did we mention the lightsabers ?

== See Also: ==
* ''[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/ Darths & Droids]'': A webcomic, made using photo-stills of the ''Star Wars'' movies to tell a story about gamers blundering through each of the six movies in sequence... though not quite exactly how you might expect. Think ''DM of the Rings'' in overall visual style, though unlike ''DM of the Rings'', ''Darths & Droids'' features several heavy twists on the actual events of the films, subplots about the players and their lives outside the game alongside the campaign, and a better overall quality of gamer.
* "[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html/ Endor Holocaust]": An excellent example of the [[skub]] Star Wars can create. Rebuttal: "[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/fanart/endortruth20040810.pdf Endor Rebuttal]"
*[[Timothy Zahn]]
*[[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]]
*[[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*[[Star Wars:Resistance]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

Star Wars

2020-03-13T22:56:37Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* The Books */

{{Star Wars}}
[[File:Star-Wars-Logo (1).jpg|center|500px|]]

{{Topquote|A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....|Star Wars opening text}}
'''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D0ZQPqeJkk/ Star Wars]''' is one of, if not ''the'', most influential media franchises of modern times, let alone its effect on science-fiction and fantasy. Indeed, among [[/tg/|nerddom]], it is challenged by only a few others, like [[Star Trek]] and [[The Lord of the Rings]].

The incredibly ardent fandom is spread worldwide and has a strong presence in popular culture. Many of the characters, like Darth Vader and Yoda, are iconic even to the general public. John Williams' score for the original trilogy is probably the best-known film score of all time. The universe has spawned numerous video games, hundreds of novels, multiple TV shows, one of the largest merchandising franchises ever, and, relevant to /tg/, a whole bunch of board, card, and roleplaying games.

It is also the current leading world source of [[Skub]].

==The Basic Concept==
Star Wars was originally a series of epic science-fantasy "space operas" that roughly followed the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. They're set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," [Note: this makes the entire series a fairy tale] where a mysterious life force called (reasonably enough) the Force permeates everything. This, in turn, can be wielded by certain people, giving them pseudo-magical abilities; thank the Emperor (no, the other one) there were no Commissars in that universe. Those who use it for good become mystical, selfless warrior monks called Jedi, whereas those who use it for evil are ruthless, self-serving bastards called Sith. However, the Force must always be in balance, so any time the Sith arise to cause imbalance, the Jedi have to pull together and take them out to restore the natural order.

The so-called Original Trilogy (made up of films IV through VI, released from 1977 to 1983) followed a young man named Luke Skywalker who becomes a Jedi and re-balances the Force. Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance is fighting to end the oppressive Galactic Empire, which is secretly led by the Sith. Luke and his Rebel companions eventually defeat the evil Emperor Palpatine, but along the way they discover that his lieutenant, Darth Vader, is actually Luke's father. A financial, critical, popular and cultural H-bomb, these movies are basically the filter through which Generation X perceives the world... for better or worse.

The so-called Prequel Trilogy (made up of films I through III, released from 1999 to 2005) explained how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and how the Galactic Empire was established. This involves a lot of convoluted politicking in the Republic, which is then torn apart in the Clone Wars, where the Republic (with an army of clones led by the Jedi) fights against the Confederacy (with an army of robots led by [[Necrons|General Grievous]] and secretly controlled by the Sith). It was not as well received as the first trilogy, for reasons we'll talk about below.

There's also a so-called Sequel Trilogy (made up of film VII and presumably films VIII and IX), which started in 2015 and picked up the story some three decades after the Emperor's defeat with a new generation of heroes taking on the remains of the evil Empire, which is a group of extremist former Imperials calling themselves the First Order. However, Episode VII aka ''The Force Awakens'', was directed by J.J. Abrams, who's mostly known for the [[skub|skubtastic]] [[Star Trek]] reboot, while Episode VIII was written and directed by Ryan Johnson who was a young director known for plot twists and genre experimentation on a handful of movies and television episodes that openly said he wanted to "subvert expectations" and make half of viewers dislike his work, then got pissed when half of them disliked his work. The result managed to fracture the Star Wars fanbase over issues of dull rehashing for VII and a whole laundry list of reasons for VIII (ranging from small ones such as it being too different, to major issues like half the movie being filler), as well as those who still enjoyed them and very little common ground between the three groups.

Finally, there are the so-called Anthology movies, standalone one-shots involving characters and plotlines that aren't a part of the main "Saga" films, except they kind of are. The first, Rogue One (2016), is an immediate prequel to Episode IV that follows those Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans. The second film follows a young Han Solo and pals Chewie and Lando. A third rumored one follows Boba Fett.

There are also three separate TV series. The first one, ''Clone Wars'', was based on traditional animation, whereas the later one, '''''The''' Clone Wars'', was a weird 3D animation. They're both pretty good. There was also a terrible theatrical release that was basically just an advertisement for ''The Clone Wars'', but, since it's even worse than the Prequel Trilogy (hint: babysitting Jabba the Hutt's kid), nobody talks about it much. The third series is Disney's ''"Rebels"'' which is set between Episodes III-IV and it takes itself far less seriously than Clone Wars did, and is more of a homage to the original trilogy since not every character in the series is the owner of a lightsaber nor are they constantly talking about grown-up politics, senators and trade embargoes... pretty much the things that clogged up the plot of the prequel trilogy.

And then there's the whole Expanded Universe, which covers pretty much everything not covered by the films, like the Old Republic (set thousands of years before the prequel trilogy, when there were a hell of a lot more Sith and Jedi around) and the New Republic (set immediately after the original trilogy, explaining what became of all the characters. It could also reach 40k levels of grimdark with races like the [[Dark Eldar|Yuuzhan]] [[Tyranids|Vong]] characters like [[Vampire|Darth Nihilus]] and beings like [[Old Ones|Abeloth]].

The EU is no longer considered in the main canon of the films and TV series, due to the new sequel trilogy which does not follow EU, the reason for this being, according to Disney, that following EU would restrict their creative freedom. The reaction to this was, well, [[skub|mixed, for lack of a better word.]] They've since noted that they'll slot ''some'' of it in on a case-by-case basis, but the canon is in a highly fluid state at the moment. EU is now officially called Star Wars Legends, though most fans still refer to it as EU.

==Why is it so popular?==

Star Wars is as accessible as science fiction gets. It doesn't require extensive knowledge of a fictional world (a la ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' or ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'') or cultural background (as ''[[Star Trek]]'' sometimes does) to make sense. Those elements are present for those who want them, but they largely stay in the (very rich and vibrant) background. It has well-shot action and good ''enough'' dialogue to make it interesting for both kids and adults (as well as allowing parents who grew up with it to watch it with their children, thereby hooking the next generation of viewers). It has simple, good-vs.-evil themes that resonate with almost anyone, anywhere, at any time. The science fiction elements are generally handled well if you don't obsess over making science fiction realistic and hard. It's a prime gateway drug for sci-fi which still holds up to the experienced eye, [[Isaac Asimov]] saw and rather enjoyed the films. All in Fourteen hours of cinema, plus optional sides for those who want it.

There's a ton of merchandise that is, of course, really cool. Also, given it's crossed over into the mainstream, many people feel comfortable being part of the community without feeling judged as "nerds" (as they might with ''Lord of the Rings'', ''D&D'', ''Star Trek'', ''Warhammer'', etc.).

Again, they roughly follow the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. If you think about it, 6 of the 9 films can be summarized as: hero begins his journey under the tutelage of a wise (more or less) man, they encounter a threat which has captured/enslaved a princess/girl, who was in one way or another connected to an important secret (usually a superweapon but could be the identity of a political figure or the location of someone); the heroes save the princess/girl but someone dies tragically in a battle against the villain while someone else is blowing up a space station or a spaceship afterwards they are happy, they celebrate and mourn the loss of the poor bloke who died.

Additionally, the first film can be summarized as a samurai and a gunslinger team up to save a princess from Nazis in space. That is multiple cinematic genres at once, following the style of the epic myth.

==Setting==
Due to article bloat, [[Star Wars Setting]] is now its own page.

==The rise of the original trilogy==

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away....etc etc you all know the lines.

A man called George Lucas had the idea to create a series of epic sci-fi space operas that would become so successful that Disney would take notice and give it the franchise fluttering eye lashes, trying to seduce it.

They would be called... ''Flash Gordon''.

Unfortunately for Georgie boy, and fortunately for modern nerddom, Dino de Laurentiis already owned ''Flash Gordon'', and were busy making their own, hilariously eighties version, so he said, screw it, I'll make my own!

He decided to start with the fourth movie in the series he envisioned, for at the time he didn't have the special effects to create the first three to the standard he wanted, and/or he just kinda made up the first movie as he went along (drawing heavily on Akira Kurosawa's seminal samurai action film, ''Hidden Fortress'' in the process as well as the book [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces''], a complex 1949 Joseph Campbell analysis of the various mythologies of human history all boiled down into the basic archtypes and elements required in heroic myth). So Episode Four ''A New Hope'' was created (simply titled ''Star Wars'' at the time) and it is not an exaggeration to say it changed the face of sci-fi and general moviemaking forever, bringing a new era of special effects and imagination to cinema and changing the lives of many who would go onto to become dedicated fan boys.

Originally, the studio had forced Lucas to take ever-increasing paycuts for what they were sure was going to be a flop, and only let him keep merchandising rights. However, whatever his flaws, George Lucas was a man of vision. Having helped pioneer the summer blockbuster, he went on to do the same to ginormous piles of movie-tie-in memorabilia. His production company, Lucasfilm ended up rolling in dosh, and with Episode Five ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and Episode Six ''The Return of the Jedi'', the legend of Star Wars and its place in cultural history was assured.

tl;dr: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4w7ChpuaM Pretty much this.]

==The coming of the prequel trilogy==
With the year 2000 coming, George Lucas felt that special effects technology had reached the level he wanted and began to create the first three movies in the star wars story he had envisioned. (As a side-note, he also made some touch-ups to the three original films, re-mastering them with special effects and a couple of extra scenes that weren't doable with the eighties' animatronics. But those were mostly accepted/shrugged away since they didn't deeply modify anything.)

The hype for the movies was immense.

And then the first movie, Episode One ''The Phantom Menace'' came out.....and there was nerd rage beyond expectation.

Part of the problem was that the immense expectations of the fandom had grown until anything less-than-perfect simply would not do, so perhaps that is somewhat to blame for the reaction to the prequel trilogy. In a vacuum one has to admit that they aren't completely ''[[Twilight|terrible films]]'' .

Episode Two ''Attack of the Clones'' and Episode Three ''Revenge of the Sith'' followed after a few years each and didn't garner nearly as much hatred, though fans complained they didn't match the greatness of the original trilogy, more concerned with flashy action and effects than competent story-telling; but hooo-boy did it deliver in flashy action, with laser armed [[MI-24 Hind|MI-24's]] full of <s>storm</s>troopers extracting jedi from a coliseum full of shooty killbots.

''Revenge of the Sith'' did, however, receive higher ratings than ''Return of the Jedi'', and is generally seen as the best and most-complete of the three prequel films as a story. Unusually the novelization alters some details and is considered a legitimately good book on its own merits.

What was generally more well received (despite a rocky start with a two hour pilot being pressed into service as a movie and an art style that took some time to gel) during this time for Star Wars was the Clone Wars animated series (both the traditionally-animated ''Clone Wars'' and the later seasons of the CGI show '''''The''' Clone Wars'', the latter which most everyone agrees is what the prequels should have been), following the war between the Republic and the Confederacy that sprung up during the time between the second and third of the prequels.

It'd be ''really'' hard to find a group of movies more skubtastic than the prequel trilogy, and saying a good or bad thing about it in front of the wrong crowd's sure to provoke huge amounts of nerdrage. In defense of the prequel trilogy's sins, they did at least do their own thing. Because of how much money the original trilogy made, practically every form of media in the 80s and 90s aped it to some form or another, and instead of falling back on the same old shit the prequels branched out and tried to get out of the franchise's comfort zone a bit. While a lot of it sucked, it blazed a trail for better writers to follow and helped liven up the universe by showing us the galaxy beyond fuckhueg spaceships and faux-Western shitholes like Tatooine. And all but the most [[Neckbeard|diehard OT purists]] can get behind shit like Naboo architecture, the Clone Army and Mace "The Ace" Windu. From a story perspective the worst sin of the prequels was demystifying the force, and subsequent works have largely swept that detail under the carpet.

==Disney and the sequel trilogy==

Finally, all the efforts by Disney to woo George Lucas paid off and in 2012 Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise for 4 billion dollars and immediately announced they would produce a new trilogy of films set after the original trilogy.

Expectations were almost as high as the private fears of the fans. Bringing on the creative talent behind the [[skub|skubtastic]] ''[[Star Trek]]'' reboot was equally... well, [[skub|take a wild guess]].

For sake of sanity, these section have been condensed. Read at your own peril.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 7: The Mouse Awakens===
''Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens'' debuted in December of 2015, and reception was what you would expect: the film was immediately a massive success from a monetary standpoint as everyone ([[China|almost]]) everywhere rushed to the theaters in response to the hype, with children engaging in as many repeat viewings as their parent's money could allow as fans did the same thing with their own. It has become a financial hit with the general public and a (critically) generally well-reviewed piece, with decent cinematography, special effects, technical stuff, etc. It also went on to become the third biggest financial success in film history (at the time), when not adjusted for inflation.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Fan response was a good deal more mixed. Many criticize the plot for rehashing Episode IV, without doing anything to establish its own identity and claim that it had a bland main character, [[Mary Sue|who had too many abilities]] whereas others find the replication of ''Star Wars'' feel an acceptable trade and praise it for being a decent action film, [[skub|and claim the lead doesn't outdo any of the previous main characters]].

Some would argue that by rehashing the original trilogy it basically nullified the accomplishments of the original crew; the Empire's still around, they've got yet another superweapon, Han & Leia split up, Luke failed to rebuild the Jedi, etc. Other fans praised it simply for being a new Star Wars that was better than the prequel trilogy (expectations were lowered due to those, to be honest). Some see poor storytelling when there was no proper showing of what went on in the galaxy 3 decades since Palpatine died, and not explaining what caused big character changes like why Han returned to his old ways or Luke ran from his friends was critical. Other say this is going to be explained in the next film and people should keep their curiosity. Some argue even with their superweapon, none of the villains feel threatening. Others argue the incompetence of the main villain is a fresh change and the point of the plot will be to see him change, to be more competent, or even learn to become good.

Overall, those against argued JJ Abrams' mystery box approach may do well for a TV series but does not mesh with films that take years to make. Defendants held the position that fans should wait to see whether the next film will do anything with the unexplained plot points.

Coincidentally, when Hamill and Fisher were originally approached by Disney to reprise their roles as Luke and Leia, they ''didn't want to do it'' right from the start. But, they didn't want to give an out-and-out "no" answer either, so they told Disney they'd return if Harrison Ford agreed to return as Han Solo as well. Knowing how much Ford ''hated'' Solo, Hamill and Fisher figured they were safe, until Disney irresistibly sweetened the deal for Ford by agreeing to kill off his character, thus forcing a reluctant Hamill and Fisher to make good on their deal... [[skub|only for the three characters to never appear on the screen at the same time.]] To be fair, Hamill has a history of saying he won’t do something only to immediately agree like he’s making a standard sitcom gag in real life, even if that usually just applies to still voicing the Joker in Batman media.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars Rebels===
Disney also released their own CGI series: ''Star Wars: Rebels'', which is actually pretty ok (considering that it airs on Disney XD, it should be no surprise that they've toned down the graphic depictions of gratuitous violence, much to the chagrin of [[Neckbeards|those who love overly gory deaths]]). It focuses less on the Jedi that have come to dominate the franchise and more on the "boots on the ground" experience of the average characters, and while the show started slow and small, the plot gained momentum as the series progressed, especially after the first season.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Rebel movement starts to grow, several characters return from ''The Clone Wars'', and the enemies the main characters have to face steadily get darker and more dangerous as more of the Empire’s attention gets attracted. When Darth Vader gets involved (played by none other than [[Awesome|James Earl Jones himself]]) he immediately proceeds to [[Awesome|open a 24-pack of unstoppable whoop-ass on the rebel scum]]. The return of Maul resulted in three character deaths (possibly four), the crippling of one main character with another well on his way down the dark side, and to top it all off Maul himself was on the loose once again. Things did not turn out so well [[Grimdark|last time that happened]], so expect the body count to rise, especially with [[Creed|Grand Admiral Thrawn]] now also coming onto the scene. The show also continues the trend set by ''The Clone Wars'' in making the Force mystical again, though whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how you felt about the <s>bullshit</s> <s>scientific</s> [[Skub|skubtastic]] midichlorian explanation of the Prequels. The animation is on point with ''The Clone Wars'', which considering it's Disney should surprise less than nobody. Oh, and Steve Blum voices one of the main characters. However, it is also noted that Star Wars Rebels may indeed have [[Grimdark|dark ending]]. Which, to a degree, it did. An important character dies, and his padawan flees into the unknown regions, leaving us with two other characters to go look for him after the second Death Star blows up.

[[Skub|The way that Filoni (the creator of Rebels and The Clone Wars) has handled the Mandalorians, a fan-favorite warrior-culture based upon the Scots and Vikings, has either been met with praise from those who despised Traviss and her overpowering of said culture, or utter RAGE that he turned many of them into either pacifist morons or bloodthirsty barbarians- usually that particular criticism comes from the Traviss fanboys]]. Do take note, however, that the old ways for the Mandalorians are making their way back into canon, such as the language, the emphasis on martial honor, and the decentralized nature of their government.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars: Rogue One===
December of 2016 brought us the first standalone Star Wars movie, "Rogue One", showing the theft of the original Death Star plans.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

While "Rogue One" can be justly criticized for lacking in character development, that was basically mandated by being set just before another movie whose actors were now 40 years too old to reprise their previous roles. The cast of the movie includes almost no one who appears in Episode IV, and the few familiar faces who do appear show up as cameos. (Fair warning: spoilers)

Accordingly, every main character dies by the end. It still manages to pack quite a lot of [[awesome]] into the movie, with Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk and Darth Vader all used to great effect. Rogue One also answers several questions, plugs several plot holes, and just generally makes A New Hope make a lot more sense in retrospect. (No wonder Vader wasn't impressed when Leia claimed to be on a "diplomatic mission.") It also has the distinctions of being the only Star Wars movie to focus on regular soldiers instead of Jedi, and being more like the original Star Wars than any of the sequels, including the other two of the main trilogy. (The original, back before it was "A New Hope", was a genre mashup of samurai + gunslinger rescue princess from space Nazis, then team up for a World War II dogfight. This one is wuxia cast + heist crew do a heist in a WWII trench warfare war zone. There's surprisingly little 'War' in Star Wars.) Much, much [[Skub]] still exists of course, since no Star Wars movie will ever please all the neckbeards but out of the five post-Disney Star Wars movies released so far, this one is definitely the least divisive and arguably the best of the bunch.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===Episode 8: The Last Royalty Check (aka zomg Luke dies!)===
On December 14 2017, ''Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi'' was released world wide. The critical reception was [[Bullshit|extremely positive]], with many critics considering it the best movie in the series since The Empire Strikes Back. The fan reception has been a great deal more negative and [[Skub|mixed]], and a number of fans are convinced that Disney leaned on media outlets to shill the new movie or else. If you have watched the Empire Strikes Back, you ''WILL'' be [[Rage|disappointed at best]], if you want to see a Star Wars film that would finally expand the characters of Kylo Ren and Rey, you ''WILL'' be satisfied and disappointed at the same time, if you want to watch the film because it is the last film starring the great and wonderful Carrie Fisher, you ''WILL'' feel hollow and sad inside, and if you came to see a pair of lightsaber-wielding punks involved in one of the [[Skub|greatest or worst lightsaber battles of the franchise, you ''WILL'' be pleased or horribly disappointed]]. The Last Jedi is seen as one of the most divisive films in the franchise by the fandom, [[FAIL|which is one hell of an achievement]] considering other films.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The complaints about The Last Jedi are many: the treatment of Luke (which even his actor, Mark Hamill, hated, to the point that he has no interest in playing Luke again), Leia's Superman asspull, Finn's plot arc that serves practically zero purpose and has him undergo the same character arc as the last movie, the forced humor, the complete disregard for established [[fluff]], disregard for even the most basic laws of physics, the fact that the central conflict is essentially the same as the one in the originals right down to the last stand ripped straight out of ''Empire'', the PC bullshit (a hipster admiral who the plot always treats as being in the right despite killing 90% of the Resistance, the Gilded Age planet arc that [[Namek|sucks up a third of the movie to no benefit,]] Rose expressing her desire to get BLACKED with a horrendous and forced #LoveTrumpsHate one-liner in the final act) added solely to virtue-signal and the whole thing being basically a 2,5h screed against the franchise it belongs to and the culture which spawned it.

Fans have also criticized the movie for dropping or discarding major plot points from TFA and repeatedly invoking Shamalamadingdong-tier plot twists for cheap gotchas that are somehow less interesting than the recycled cliches they play off of. Director Rian Johnson has responded by shitting on said critics and trying to defend the film on social media like something out of an ED or RW article. (Important note: George Lucas never tried to defend the prequels, despite the huge backlash at the time, and he agreed with fans that [[C.S Goto|The Star Wars Holiday Special]] was an abomination.) It later came out that Johnson had not been given any kind of roadmap beyond Lucas' old and unfinished concept scripts and was not allowed to see what Abrams had done until TLJ was too far into production to write in most of the previous movie's plot points, which makes the fail Disney's fault just as much as it is Johnson's. Except we also know that he had at least a modicum of influence over the ending of TFA, so they must have talked on at least some degree. As with TFA Lucasfilm has tried to paper over the holes with tie-in material, and just like TFA the fans recognize the damage control.

The Last Jedi has without a doubt torn the fanbase apart in ways even the prequels didn't come close to, with many fans declaring that they have dropped the sequel trilogy. Even Star Wars' famous merchandising has taken a mauling, as [[/toy/]] giggles at Rose Tico and General Hux figures warming shelves while new product shipments go straight from the transport case to the clearance bin.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg_FoEy8T_A I'm Solo, Han Solo, Han Solo]===
On May 25th 2018, the 41st anniversary of the franchise, ''Solo: A Star Wars Story'' was released. The general consensus seems to be that it is the most average film in the series. At the very least, most people agree that it is at least better than The Last Jedi (if barely) and the backlash from that movie can be felt even in Solo: many fans have chosen to boycott the movie. Even before release, many fans had derided the whole affair as unnecessary: no one was really asking for a Han Solo origin movie, particularly one without Harrison Ford. Han Solo's entire life history had already been explored thoroughly in EU novels and comics, so the movie could only be a retread or a retcon, both things most fanbases tend to disapprove of.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Whether it is because of this boycott or not, [[Not as planned|something no one expected happened:]] ''Solo'' was a box office bomb. Its opening weekend performed way below expectations and as of this writing, it has only made half of the money it needs for it to break even. Disney still continued to labor under the delusion that China would save their bottom line regardless of the fact that Star Wars has never been popular in China.

So what is it like? Well, rather than being a space opera like the other films, this is a space Western. Rather than being about large-scale battles and saving the galaxy from tyranny, it's about heists and the galactic underworld. (Except for the Mimban sequence, which you'd swear was lifted from a live-action Imperial Guard movie.) It's essentially Disney's reboot/retcon of the old EU Han Solo novels, taking things that were mentioned offhand in the original trilogy (like how Han did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs) and making that the subject of an entire movie. The film was perhaps cursed from the beginning due to its [[Fail|troubled production.]] How troubled? The lead needed an acting coach to get through his shoots (Han may have walked away with the Falcon, but Danny Glover's Lando stole the spotlight every time) and 70% of the movie had to be reshot by a different director due to [[Butthurt|creative differences]] between Lucasfilm and the original directors.

The fail only compounded when it premiered and fans got to see what those "creative differences" may have wrought: the writing staff started spewing bullshit to the press about Lando being "pansexual" with no precedent in any Star Wars production including ''Solo'', the film's tone is a schizophrenic nightmare to the last-minute reshoots and Han's sidekick for most of the movie is [[What|a self-built female droid social justice warrior]] named [[/v/|L3-37]]. Audiences ''cheered and applauded'' when that <s>man</s>human-hating self-insert character finally fucking died. Perhaps the most damning sin is that these are the movie's only notable qualities: take them away and you're left with a movie that would make you think "Huh, that was okay," and then never think about it again for the rest of your life, were it not for the crippling disappointment of seeing one of the most beloved franchises in the world fall so far. Between the boycotts, the mediocrity of the movie itself, and [https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Gawker certain news outlets] claiming that the driving force behind said boycotts was [[/pol/]], ''Solo'' cratered so badly that [[Exterminatus|all non-''Episode 9'' Star Wars movies were for a short time shelved indefinitely, and the only side-movie still being worked on is the obligatory Boba Fett origin movie, which is more likely to sell tickets based on the name alone.]] Incidentally, one of the writers picked by Lucasfilm to handle ''Solo'''s tie-in content, Cavan Scott, has been hired by [[Games Workshop]] for the [[Warhammer Adventures]] series.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker (aka Plan Palpa-Nine from Outer Space)===
Your opinion of this movie is very easy to predict based on what you thought of the others; if you found The Last Jedi to be "refreshing", you'll absolutely HATE this one. If you hate all Disney content aside from ''maybe'' The Mandalorian, you'll hate this one as much as the others. If you absolutely detested The Last Jedi but have mixed opinions of the rest, you'll probably consider this to be the best of the new movies to varying degrees of actual enthusiasm. The movie largely undoes or ignores swathes of the previous one.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

After finishing shooting, the film was shown to test audiences (which JJ Abrams lied never happened). The film was extremely poorly received, one of many reasons being because it had [[Mary Sue|Rey curb-stomping Palpatine by herself in the final battle]] (test audiences reportedly either laughing at the film or had to be stopped from walking out of the test screenings). The poor showing made (then) Disney CEO Bob Iger - who was overseeing the screening - furious, and he immediately ordered the film to be reshot. The resulting reshoots were so extensive, [http://archive.ph/RLj94 they spanned months and the film didn't have a final edit till December 2019, the month of release], causing trailers to be so desperate for footage that wouldn't be cut they had to fill half the length with footage from prior films and stuff used in prior trailers. Further complicating matters was that the ''very stupid'' plot was leaked months before release. Despite extensive denials from Disney and media outlets, the leaks were proven correct by getting then unrevealed names and plot objects right. Camera leaks the week before release showed very little of the fantastically stupid content leaked months beforehand was changed, only minor details.

Before reading on, be aware that Rey and Kylo are no longer movie-type Force users, they have been changed to video game characters. Like KOTOR and Jedi Academy type where you just get powers by killing enough dudes. None of the powers are new to the franchise, but have been rarely seen and in some cases never before have in movies. You should also know that unlike the first Visual Dictionary that mostly just gave little prop trivia and plot hooks for other works, and the second which was mostly irrelevant until it gets referenced in a decade or two, the final Visual Dictionary is damn near required reading (this shit will get a "VD" to indicate it) since a lot of explanations were cut in the reshoots and recuts. Like for example the connection between Rey and Kylo is a "Force Dyad", basically one soul in the Force that inhabits two bodies (setting up a bit of a snarl what happens when one dies and not the other, and implying the personality is mostly in the brain which is why they can have unique experiences, but whatever) and warps space/time. This is why Rey was inexplicably powerful and knew how to do shit instinctively, because Kylo's training passed onto her, and likewise her nonstop playing with X-Wing training sims as a child made him a badass pilot. Dyads used to be far more common in the KOTOR era, and were apparently the inspiration for the Sith Rule Of Two. This is never mentioned in the final cut of the film, but leaks show it was in one of the earlier ones.

The movie pressed on with breakneck speed that doesn't have time for musical interludes or wipe transitions, the opening crawl informing you that Palpatine has somehow returned and sent a message to the galaxy with the Resistance trying to rebuild and gather information, Rey being trained by Leia on the planet Ajan Kloss (AKA not!Yavin #2, VD) after repairing Anakin's lightsaber (VD) who had received partial training from Luke before stopping for reasons explained later in the movie and supplementing the rest with her pouring over the Jedi texts, and Kylo Ren trying to find Palpatine because his existence is a threat to his rule. The movie takes a lot of inspiration from KOTOR era lore with Ren finding a Sith McGuffin Holocron-type navigation device on Mustafar (VD) showing him the secret planet of the Sith (not Korriban/Pesegam/Moraband, this one is a planet in a red nebula that is under constant lightning storms called Exegol). There he finds a MASSIVE Sith cult that has kept itself secret and managed to not only build a fucking massive fleet of Star Destroyers equipped with planetkiller guns like something straight out of the old canon, but divisions of Stormtroopers, technicians, and officers to fill them along with the typical cultists in robes who administer to keeping Palpatine alive and seeing to his Sith alchemy shit...which includes tanks containing multiple clones of Snoke, revealing the guy was literally born looking like that with a manufactured backstory all so Palpatine could use him as a puppet to create the First Order (which is almost a meta commentary about the backstory controversy).

Kylo is offered the chance to be the new Emperor by Palpatine, who is a corpse kept barely alive through methods some would consider... Unnatural, while strapped to a machine with [[Lord Kroak|his spirit sticking nearby]] (the filmmakers zig-zagged on the nature of this; first it was the original Palpatine who had somehow duped everyone in ''Return of the Jedi'' with a clone stand in, then the reshoots changed it to the original's zombie-like rotting corpse animated by his lingering spirit and Lucasfilm later retconned him to be a zombie-like clone of Palpatine after the film's release). The only requirement for Palps to pass him Emperorship is killing Rey, although Ren is immediately suspicious of the other strings attached (including choking a guy in a hissyfit when that concern is voiced) and decides instead to recruit Rey again, this time as a co-Emperor.

Finn and Poe obtain information about a spy within the First Order (yeah, you know its fucking Hux even before they say there is a spy at all) while Rey gets visions during her training with Leia. The spy confirms that Palpatine is legit and the info about the fuckmassive deathfleet is legit, and Rey finds the Jedi texts contain notes from Luke about his search for that planet. They go to his last clue, a desert planet that isn't Tatooine and is the middle of a festival where they find Lando has been holed up enjoying himself since him and Luke traveled there. They are immediately spotted by the First Order and escape from them to find the ship of one of Palpatine's servants who had last been seen there. They fall into sinkholes around the ship created by giant tunneling worms, and find the skeleton of Sheev's boy as well as a Sith dagger. 3PO is programmed with the Sith language, but his programming from the Old Republic era forbids him from giving the translation to civilians. Rey manages to get the sand worms to leave them alone by using Force powers to heal one's wound, and they attempt to get the Sheev's servant's ship up and running before they are attacked by the First Order. Chewie is taken prisoner and Rey wrecks Kylo's TIE Fighter before the two engage in a Force tug of war to pull the transport Chewie is on, which ends in Rey accidentally Force Lightning it and causing it to explode when she becomes frustrated with the stalemate. Chewie is revealed to have been on another transport and is taken to Ren's flagship Star Destroyer while the heroes, instead of do something sensible like seek a Rebel leader who can give security clearance for 3PO's protocol (Leia's the obvious choice), they head to a planet under VERY Nazi-like occupation to find a droid technician who can hack 3PO's memory. They encounter a woman from Poe's past, revealing he was a former spice smuggler like Han until abandoning his crew (causing them to fall into debt and become bitter at him) to join the Resistance. She threatens to turn the group in to pay off their debt [[Mary Sue| but Rey kicks her ass, earning her respect and she takes them to the technician without further incident.]] The technician unlocks 3PO's memory at the cost of wiping him. The translation reveals the dagger is the key to finding the Sith navigation McGuffin they are looking for. During this BB-8 reactivates Sheev's servant's old droid, who doesn't do much.

The heroes proceed to board Ren's flagship with the help of a First Order officer's badge, and shoot their way through as they free Chewie. Rey and Ren have another linked vision where her parents are revealed to have attempted to hide her from her grandfather Palpatine, who wanted to merge the souls of himself and '''ALL''' other preceding Sith (presumably not Revan, since his redemption is canon) while he discovers they are on his ship and orders it put on lockdown. Rey is confronted in the hangar by Ren, who offers her to join him again. She refuses and the Falcon appears, the engines blowing away the Stormtroopers while Rey jumps aboard. The crew head to Endor after finding out from Sheev's servant's old droid that it was where he was going to go next (this is the only thing the droid does other than serve as a "pet the dog moment" for the cast a few times) where the Death Star wreckage of the disk and throne room landed, encountering a division of former child-soldier Stormtroopers like Finn who went AWOL. The dagger has a slide-out metal prong from the handle which perfectly lines up with the corridor leading to Sheev's throne room. The team work on repairing the Falcon while Rey presses on ahead, alone, to the Death Star wreckage. Once in the throne room a hidden door opens, revealing a sanctum full of crystal mirrors that are the same as the ones she saw in her vision in Force Awakens (the scene where she snaps her fingers and all the mirrored ones do as well). There she finds the Sith McGuffin and gets a "The Cave" vision of herself as a Sith with a red double-bladed lightsaber which she fights. Kylo is waiting for her in the throne room, and crushes the Sith McGuffin in his hand before informing her they are linked in the Force as one soul inhabiting two bodies and offering her again to be the Vader to her Palpatine which she again refuses. The two fight while Finn and one of the Stormtroopers try to rescue her. They fight their way onto the remnants of the Death Star hangar, reminiscent of Anakin and Obi-wan in Revenge Of The Sith with water instead of lava, before Ren freezes as he senses his mother start to die. This pause gives Rey time to grab his lightsaber and stab him before she freezes sensing Leia actually pass away. Rey uses the Force to heal him, then steals his TIE Fighter while Poe and Finn return to the Resistance base. Rey initially attempts to hide on Luke's monastery to let Palpatine's bloodline die with her, but after lighting Kylo's TIE on fire (so she's destroyed 2 of his personal TIE at this point) Luke appears as a Force ghost to tell her <strike>Rian Johnson</strike> he was wrong, and was motivated by fear when he tried to hide. He reveals that all the Jedi who came before are rooting for her, and tells her where Leia's lightsaber is hidden. He reveals she stopped her training because in a vision she saw that her son would be destroyed by the Dark Side, and a Light Side counterpart would take up her blade instead. Meanwhile, Kylo is visited by the memory of Han. The two reenact the scene from Force Awakens, only this time Kylo throws his lightsaber into the sea and renounces the name Kylo Ren to become simply Ben again. Meanwhile the First Order blow up Poe's home planet where the droid technician and Poe's old crew were, although they had managed to get offworld by that point. Also, R2-D2 restores C-3PO's memory wipe by finding a backup which contains everything from before the mission.

Luke lifts his X-Wing from the waves and Rey scavenges the Sith McGuffin from the flaming wreck of Kylo's ship. As she proceeds to the Sith planet she sends out a beacon to track her progress, giving the entire galaxy a map to the Sith fleet. Poe, now leader of the Resistance, sends Lando with the Falcon and Nien Nunb to gather any forces they can, all the ones who refused to aid them in The Last Jedi, while the rest of the Resistance gears up to attack Sheev's fleet before they can leave the storm cloud. The initial plan is to destroy the navigation device which orients them to the rest of the galaxy without which the fleet cannot leave, until the commander of the flagship (a former Imperial officer) realizes what they are doing and orders it to be shut down so his own ship could serve as the navigation for the rest. Rey confronts Sheev in a coliseum/throne room full of the Cultist parents of the personnel of the fleet (VD) and is informed of his plan to have her kill him so all the Sith could merge with her and rule as basically the God Emperor of Star Wars. She raises her lightsaber before using the strange wormhole Force connection thing they have to pass it to Ben, who had gotten there with a salvaged TIE from the Death Star wreckage and was being beaten by his former servants, the Knights Of Ren. Armed with Luke's old lightsaber he kills them and proceeds to the throne room. Ben arrives and the two attempt to fight him. He simply Force Pushes them back and forces them to kneel before draining a portion of their souls, the "two bodies one soul" thing apparently being a massive source of Force power he can heal himself with to rule in his own rejuvenated body again (but with Darth Maul eyes) rather than Rey's. Meanwhile, the ex-Stormtroopers and Resistance ground personnel lead by Finn land on the flagship Star Destroyer (its still in the atmosphere of the Sith planet, thus gravity and breathable air applies) and due to bringing goat-horse things from Endor are not affected by onboard EMP that would otherwise short out speeders and tanks (which is a thing from past canon, mostly comics and novels, which they use to explain why such a thing doesn't happen more often). Meanwhile, Lando appears with a fucking enormous fleet (remember the backstory that the New Republic didn't have a fleet, instead paying for every planet to have a militia of their own which would unite when there was a big enough threat? Well, JJ finally remembered because all those fucks show up alongside a neat little game of "spot that ship from the series you know" in a few shots). They begin attacking the superweapons underneath the Star Destroyers directly, causing chain reactions that blow the entire ship.

Ben is Force-pushed by Sheev into a pit as revenge for how Vader did the same thing to him before taunting the dying Rey and unleashing a MASSIVE Force Lightning storm which shorts out the fleet. While this is going on the spirits of all the dead Jedi (like pretty much anyone they could find to record a line from any of the past movies or shows, including Ahsoka; which is pretty lame since it means she was killed off-screen, with natural causes being unlikely since Ahsoka wouldn't have been 80 yet, and even that's below the average Togruta life expectancy, though this may not necessarily be the case according to Filoni) who inhabit her body the same way that Palpatine is currently full of all the Sith. Rey manages to stand and deflects his Force Lightning with Leia's lightsaber, which isn't enough until Ben manages to climb out of the pit and throw her Luke's lightsaber; with the two together she's able to walk close enough to Sheev for his Force Lightning to burn him, and despite this being the third fucking time this has happened he does not turn off the lightning and instead Raiders Of The Lost Ark's himself into a skeleton before blowing up and destroying not only himself but the spirits of all the past Sith. Despite Palpatine's plan being to possess Rey when she kills him, for some reason he doesn't do so. The Jedi spirits leave Rey and she dies, with the barely lingering on Ben healing her. They share a kiss (reminder that since Sheev created Anakin, they're basically cousins, and their relationship is so adversarial it makes Edward and Bella's from Twilight look healthy, something the novelization tries to claim is "purely platonic") before Ben dies. His body vanishes, as does Leia's. The Resistance/Militia fleet destroy all the Star Destroyers after Finn's ground crew hijacks one of the cannons of the flagship to shoot at the ship bridge, killing the last of the old Empire and First Order leadership.

The heroes return to the Resistance planet where they celebrate, scenes showing the rest of the galaxy shooting the last of the First Order Star Destroyers play, Chewie is given Han's old medal from A New Hope, and the ex-Stormtrooper leader is hinted to be Lando's daughter or grandaughter implying a spinoff with the two. After the celebrations Rey returns to Luke's old home on Tatooine where she buries Anakin and Leia's lightsabers, revealing she built her own from her Force vision only with yellow blades instead of red ones. An old woman who was a neighbor of Owen and Beru comments nobody had been to that place in years and asks Rey's name. Seeing the Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia, she tells the woman her name is Rey Skywalker. The End.

Because god knows this fandom can no longer agree on fucking anything anymore, there was immediately fan wars going on everywhere Star Wars fans are found. Fans accused haters of review bombing, those who hated the movie claimed the critic score (which, if you recall, is mostly people who liked The Last Jedi and hate this movie for doing a U-turn on it) vindicates them. The fan fighting probably won't ever end, since now we apparently have to reevaluate if A New Hope and the Kenner Star Wars toys were ever good in the first place because some contrarians now claim the prequels are the pinnacle of Star Wars. Whatever the case, Disney CEO Bog Iger resigned in the middle of the work week in late February 2020, indicating that the backlash and fan alienation had a deeper impact than anticipated.
</div>
</div>

==Expanded Universe==

It can be said what makes a franchise into a long term lasting thing is when a wealth of extra story and background is created that expands on the original story far beyond what there was. It could be argued Star Wars leads the race in this, as the sheer amount of extra novels, graphic novels and games based on Star Wars can and does overwhelm the ordinary fan.

===The original EU/Star Wars "Legends"===

[[Image: Choices_of_One_PB_art.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Before Cara, before Rey, before Ashoka, Nomi Sunrider or Padme... there was Mara Jade]]
The background has expanded into the distant past before the founding of the current Jedi and Sith orders and into the (not-quite-so) far future looking at the descendants of Luke Skywalker and other popular characters. Uniquely, especially considering [[Warhammer 40K|other]] [[Star Trek|franchises']] track records, the Star Wars Expanded Universe is <strike>remarkably</strike> <strike>sorta</strike> sometimes internally consistent, both with other sources within the universe and with the films themselves, at least in comparison to other comparable settings. Of course, it's got plenty of its own [[C. S. Goto|problem children]] that slipped through, and the [[skub]] mine of it all isn't much shallower than that of 40K. Good portions of it do hold up well, largely due to the efforts of Lucas' company's continuity department leaning on everyone to hold it together. One thing that greatly helps is continuity books and articles aren't afraid to make small retcons to make even the most obscure and shitty sources (like that terrible PS1 fighting game) seem like part of an organized plot. Particularly well-loved parts include characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn (a rare alien officer in the Empire and popular enough that Disney brought him back to the canon from the EU) and Mara Jade (a Force-using former agent of Emperor Palpatine who later turned good, became a Jedi Master, married Luke and had a son with him) - interestingly both were created by the same author [[Timothy Zahn]].

Upon their acquisition, Disney said "fuck it" and threw out everything but the films and the Clone Wars cartoons. Some popular old stuff got mentions or appearances (and Thrawn got to be a major character), but the overall quality is even lower than the old EU. What was set up as a major book contains phrases like "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air" and random virtue signalling. As though to top the previous, Disney literally published a book with an entire chapter about mass wedding farts (Yes. Really.). The only good stuff is from established EU authors writing stuff far away from era of the Disney films.

The [[rage]] over the EU's scrapping was major among many fans of it, but for all Disney's shortcomings, they were in a tight spot. Towards the end all that continuity and consistency got thrown out the airlock for increasingly dumb and disjointed narratives and garbled plot threads to the point that the Star Wars logo was just about as much a sign of quality as the Nintendo approval stamp on shitty SNES games.

Another problem was that Disney is mostly family-firendly, and some of the Star Wars EU could get really dark. As in Warhammer 40k levels of grimdark. Examples of this are the invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong - forcenull space-Druchii (no no, not Comorrites though they have the pain and body modification fetishes for it, space-'''Druchii''', riding enslaved tyranid bioships) from another galaxy, Mnggal-Mnggal - mindraping gelatin lost on its way to Star Trek, and Abeloth - an ancient (she predates the Jedi and the Sith) yandere Force entity more like something from the Cthulhu Mythos and is so dangerous the Jedi and the Sith '''joined forces''' to fight her. It's difficult to envision how Disney could have kept the EU when even before all that it was struggling to find a market beyond the most [[neckbeards|dedicated fans]].

===The Books===

'''The Good EU'''
[[Image: Heir-to-the-empire-cover.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Heir to the Empire (1991): The book that started it all]]
* '''The Thrawn Trilogy''': The origination point for the EU, and focuses on the conflict with the Imperial remnants left over after RotJ. Named for the main villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, who went on to become one of Star Wars most well-loved characters. Basically the story "The Force Awakens" wishes it was. Also introduced Mara Jade, a sexy redhead that's everything Disney wishes Rey was and more.
* '''The Han Solo Adventures''': Star's End was the second spinoff book written and the first good one. Han and Chewie are trying to get some work done on the Falcon and wind up having to bust out some political prisoners to pay for it. Would have made for a better film than ''Solo'' did.
* '''Shadows of the Empire''': Shadows is set between ESB and RotJ and fills in the details of getting the Death Star II's plans, finding out where Han was taken, Luke building his own saber, etc by the introduction of another bounty hunter by the name of Dash Rendar. The Special Edition rerelease of ''A New Hope'' added the Outrider to the background of one scene. Most notable for the fact that it was also adapted into a video game for the N64 and PC.
*'''The Darth Bane Trilogy''': The origin of the Rule of Two for the Sith, along with a compelling protagonist and his apprentice.
* '''Revenge of the Sith''': The novelization is actually considered a serious improvement over the movie itself.

'''The Bad EU'''
* '''Jedi Academy Trilogy''': Luke sets up his academy on Yavin IV and tries to teach [[Rage|Kyp Durron]]. Imperial remnant superweapons hit ludicrous territory with the sun crusher. This was the beginning of Kevin J Anderson hammering out a couple dozen Star Wars books over about four years.
* '''Young Jedi Knights Series''': Set between Jedi Academy and New Jedi Order, mostly follows Han & Leia's kids.
* '''I, Jedi''': A retelling of the Jedi Academy Trilogy (see above) with more of Corran Horn from the first set of X-Wing books. Less derp in general but significantly more [[Mary Sue]]age of Horn.
* '''Legacy of the Force''': The survivors of the Yuuzhan Vong War are trying to rebuild the galaxy, but Jacen Solo turns Sith and becomes the main villain. The book series is infamous for nearly killing the Star Wars EU, threatening the franchise and issues between various writers years before Disney went down the same road (Jacen Solo was also a major influence for Kylo Ren). The biggest complaints were Jacen killing Mara, the heroes becoming idiots whenever they could've stopped the villains, poor dialogue, long-winded writing and the story being overstuffed with allusions to post 9/11 United States.

'''The [[Skub]] EU'''
[[Image: Yuuzhan-vong-eu2_bg.jpg|right|200px|thumb|The Yuuzhan Vong, [[Skub|either badass and interesting or edgy and canon-defiling villains]]]]
* '''New Jedi Order''': The longest-running (19 books long) and most divisive story of the EU. Luke's married to Mara and they're rebuilding the Jedi Order while Han and Leia are trying to reconcile the New Republic and Imperial Remnants. Han and Leia are also raising three kids and Mara's got a terminal illness. Then extragalactic aliens called Yuuzhan Vong - [[Imperium of Man|religious fanatics]] with [[Tyranids|organic technology]], a thing for [[Dark Eldar|pain and body modification]] along with [[Culexus|partial immunity to The Force]] - start a war to conquer the Star Wars Galaxy. Chewie dies Majora's Mask style, Mara's illness is cured and she gives birth to Ben Skywalker, the Vong take over Coruscant, lots is learned about the Force and the bodycount goes so high it could give Warhammer 40k a run for its money (365 TRILLION; only the War in Heaven or the Fall of the Eldar had anywhere near that many deaths in one event). A real love-it-or-hate-it series, some parts were good, some were bad and some were weird.
* '''Dark Empire''': Palpatine's back to save a dying franchise decades before Disney tried it. Starts off good, falls apart fast. Known for its love-it-or-hate-it artstyle and dialogue.
* '''Courtship of Princess Leia''': Deals with another Imperial remnant. This one has force witches. It's also ''really'' silly. If you like that, raise this higher. If not, it might even drop lower.
* '''Fate of the Jedi''': People are growing dissatisfied with the Jedi Order following LotF. Luke, Ben and the remaining Jedi are trying to fix things just as a Sith Tribe emerges from hiding. Things take a turn for cosmic horror when a yandere, Force-using eldritch abomination who could doom the galaxy escapes her prison. The Sith apprentice Vestara rises through the ranks and finds herself in a Catwoman/Batman situation with Ben Skywalker. While being an OoM better than the preceding trilogy, FotJ has a very divided opinion among SW fans.

=== Disney Canon ===
[[Image:Star_Wars_Disney_Princesses.jpg|right|400px|thumb|Love it or hate it, they are now official ''Disney Princesses''.]]
It's still [[skub|debatable]] whether or not the new Canon holds up to the old EU, or learns to fix the problems that plagued it. We probably won't see what comes of it for decades to come. Disney Canon, as of 2020, seems to largely be built around the nine main movies (of course), with shows like Rebels and Clone Wars alongside anthology movies fleshing out stories that had been told in comics and books back before the Disney buy-up, but can now be seen on film.

A curious thing that has begun happening: Certain elements of the old EU is slipping into the Disney Canon. Plotlines like the Emperor returning, the Death Star plans heist and Han's path to become the smuggler we know him as all have bits and pieces from EU canon in them. In some cases, whole characters are ported in; the best example is Admiral Thrawn, who appears in Rebels. Other times, popular characters has their traits or stories ported into new ones (Finn and Cassian are both expies of Kyle Katarn, for example). This gives some credence to the argument that Lucasfilms and Disney wanted to wipe the slate with all the stories that had been told in the EU, so they could create their own, fully realized canon Star Wars setting that one could make movies - ''many'' movies - from. Considering the amount of shitty fan-fiction-esque stories the EU had, this may be for the best, but of course, storylines that people have loved for ages are also thrown out with the bathwater.

Now. Detractors of Disney-era Star Wars often talk loads about how the sequel trilogy invalidates the original trilogy, or how Disney screwed over Luke or ignored cool characters like Kyle Katarn. These are semi-valid arguments of course, but they ignore some of the biggest issues with the EU originally - it wasn't sponsored by George Lucas and Lucasfilms. They were sponsored fan-fiction in a sense, semi-canon from the outset and not really something that could be considered a part of the Star Wars setting, though George Lucas did work with the writers to a point, such as with the New Jedi Order book series (he gave them permission to kill off Chewbacca in the story). In fact, George never really considered them real stories; more like a parallel universe of his own Star Wars works. He accepted it because they bring in the big bucks when people would beg to have the official Star Wars logo on anything they produced.

That, and the sequel trilogy, underwhelming as it may be, was George's idea in broad strokes. The series was always going to have a sequel trilogy, and while the outcome isn't exactly what he (or we) wanted, quite a lot of it is. Luke being an exile on a far-away planet, who has to be roused to fight by a new, female Jedi? George's idea, not Disney's. A son of Han and Leia struggling with the Dark Side? Also George's idea (though Disney lifted a lot form the original version - Jacen Solo - for Kylo Ren). If anything, much of the direction comes from Lucasfilms; Disney just wants the movie to sell well. It's similar with Marvel nowadays.

So for better or worse, the Disney Canon is the first time the wider setting of Star Wars beyond the series and movies have become irrevocably canon, rather than "kinda-sorta-canon". Much of what we've gotten that is new is based roughly on George's own work as well. Remember this when discussing EU vs Disney in Star Wars - Either setting is cool for their own reasons, but the Mouse got little to do with it - and if you don't like it, bring it up with big man Lucas. Whatever the case, with Bob Iger's resignation as CEO from Disney (likely not on his terms, as he stated multiple times he would retire in 2021), things are changing (for better or worse).

==Star Wars:The Television Shows==
===Star Wars:The Clone Wars===
Technically, there are two series called similar titles. The first was 2004's ''Star Wars: Clone Wars'', an animated miniseries made by Genndy Tartakovsky (He of Dexter's Lab and [[Samurai Jack]] fame) chronicling, among other things, the titular Clone Wars and introducing a much more sinister General Grievous to the world.

But then we have ''The Clone Wars'', a CGI animated series (and tie-in movie) that we'll be talking about more and contributed more to the EU. One of the most universally known and loved parts of Star Wars, most fans worth their action figures and limited edition movie sets have watched the show and have an opinion on it one way or another. Some of the most notable characteristics are:

* The Clone Troopers are fleshed out,and we see that they are manly motherfuckers who make Guardsmen's balls of steel look like the cardboard their armor is made out of (seriously, in the movie, they literally charge straight into close combat with ''giant armored walkers with large guns'' and jump off roofs to get top of them to shoot them point blank, and punch droids in the face)
* Anakin Skywalker is actually a good, fleshed out character, with a good voice actor and shows his descent to child-murdering Force-choking asshat wasn't just him going 'welp, guess I'll fall to the Dark Side.' There was a fair amount of bad-cop “it was him or me” murder to get there.
* Introduces Ashoka Tano, a major character who's a female Togruta Jedi that's well-written, non-OP, non-Mary Sue and doesn't invalidate characters from the movies. Starts off a bit annoying in the Clone Wars movie, but manages to do something truly special: she ''learns''. Over the course of Clone Wars and Rebels, Ashoka probably has the most character development out of any other Star Wars character.
* Obi-Wan being a sexy one-liner spouting sarcastic badass.
* And many others.

However, there were some pretty derp moments too, such as

* Babysitting episode/movie.
* D-squad, where a bunch of droids become heroes of the Republic.
* Mandalore and how it's fluff was basically screwed 180 degrees, and then some.
* Droids were comic relief of the first and second seasons. It was annoying.

All in all, it was an good show that took some time to find it's feet.

After many years, a seventh season was been announced in an attempt to take away from ''The Last Jedi'' being shit and add ''something'' to the empty Disney Plus lineup. At least some of the episodes will be ones that were in production when the show ended. It promptly disappeared after that announcement for a couple years till it was announced it's coming out in 2019.

===Star Wars: Rebels===
[[Image:WomanYellingAtLothcat.jpeg|right|400px|thumb|''Stop fooling our plan, you rebel scum!'']]
Now that Disney owns Star Wars they can't go a season without something new to run on Disney XD, so after ''The Clone Wars'' ended they needed a series to milk episodes out of and launched ''Rebels''. ''Rebels'' is set a few years before ''A New Hope'' and covers the early formation of the rebellion from the perspective of one cell focused on the planet Lothal. If you liked ''Rogue One'' but thought it should be about 25 hours long and done in cartoony CGI then this is the show for you.

So what did we see in ''Rebels''?

* Grand Admiral Thrawn makes his debut in Disney Star Wars, along with the TIE Defender project. The character doesn’t lose much in the translation, and later on is arguably treated better than the source.
* The bearded old guy in the Endor strike team in RotJ turns out to be Captain Rex. Fan theory at first, later confirmed.
* You CAN [[combi-weapon]] a lightsaber and a blaster, and it's OP as shit
* Force wolves (no, not [[Rune Priest|those force wolves]])
* [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones-style]] Mandos (Krownest is pretty much Space-Winterfell).
* Imperial Inquisitors. Sure they don’t last long, but they were intimidating while they were, and it planted the seed that was used elsewhere.
* Some good appearances by Darth Vader.

So about the wolves... ''Rebels'' turns the force mysticism up past 11. Forget just being precog space monks with laser swords; as far as ''Rebels'' is concerned the Jedi are [[craftworld]] [[eldar]] without the racism. Rebels picks up the torch of the Clone Wars “Force Gods” and mixes in some of the straight-up fantasy shit from the Lucas era novels and the KOTOR/Old Republic Jedi philosophy schools and heresies beyond just “Light good, Dark bad”.

However, there were levels of derp that we got to see in this show, such as the following:

* Since this is a Disney cartoon, the bad guys can't have even a temporary victory. This changes Thrawn and the other Imperials from an imposing force to [[Abbadon|cartoon villains]], although Rebels villains manage to stay intimidating more than Grievous did in Clone Wars.
* Battles slower paced than a Death Guard movement phase. Enjoy characters having full conversations in cover-based shooting when everyone has Stormtrooper aim.
* Lightsabers the shape of toothpicks.
* [[Bullshit|Helicopter lightsabers]]
* Complete bipolarity in tone. This can create some great moments, but invariably ruins the mood episode by episode, or between the A and B plots.
* Iron Squadron. Just...fucking [[Rage|Iron Squadron]]
* Star Destroyers look terrible, mostly due to their bridge towers being way taller than they should be.

All in all, it depends on your preference.

Since the show does have a fair amount of dedicated fans, <strike>likely</strike> possibly more than the sequel trilogy itself, Disney has made a habit of planting Easter Egg references to Rebels in basically everything moving forward, usually in the form of an appearance by the iconic ship The Ghost or the friendly-ish space pirate character Hondo Ohnaka.

===Star Wars: Resistance===
Annnd they had to go and change things again. With ''Rebels'' coming to a close and a burning need to keep Star Wars on their lineup, Disney had a choice: find a new plot and setting for a formula and art style that had produced two successful multi-season shows, or throw it all out and start from scratch. Remember, this is Disney we're talking about, the company that once [[Fail|paid a quarter billion dollars to fire the producer who made ''The Little Mermaid'', ''Beauty and the Beast'', ''Aladdin'', and ''The Lion King'']] only for him to go and [[profit|found Dreamworks]] out of spite.

Like its predecessor, ''Star Wars: Resistance'' sets itself up as a prequel to a trilogy, in this case following the early days of the Resistance in its fight against the First Order. Where it differs from ''Rebels'' is that ''Resistance'' is playing the warm up act for a trilogy that nobody likes. On top of which, the creators abandoned the 3D style that ''Rebels'' inherited from ''The Clone Wars'', and replaced it with a cel style that's half ''Treasure Planet'', half ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' and all ''RWBY''.

To be blunt, this show is 100% pure crystal derp. Our star is Kazuda Xiono, a manic depressive who literally fanboy-ed his way into being a spy under the cover story of being a mechanic, two jobs he is not qualified for. This kid is the Invader Zim of Star Wars. Filling out the cast we have the original only cockney girl in space, an autistic alien, their widower boss who is definitely gonna die, D.Va and her ex-imperial officer dad, and BB-8. Poe Dameron shows up regularly so he can be Ace Fucking Rimmer without having to compete against Rey for the TOP SUE trophy. Reception was so terrible it was confirmed canceled at 2 seasons before the second season even started.

Part of the problem with ''Resistance'' is that the First Order has a doomfort that can frag planets across the galaxy, yet has to resort to hiring pirates to encourage settlements into accepting the First Order's protection racket. Palpy's empire was a model of efficient, heavy handed governance; its evil intent veiled from the masses who mostly resent it for bringing order. The First Order on the other hand is basically just Cobra Command, a font of evil hamstrung by flailing incompetence. As mentioned earlier, the backstory for the Resistance and First Order is basically that the First Order are a mobile pirate fleet with one untested secret base weapon lead by old farts of dubious actual leadership abilities from the Empire and their fanatical children with grunts made up of brainwashed child soldiers kidnapped from pioneer settlements while the Resistance is just a tiny militia that is so poorly funded they don’t even qualify as a single fleet since their few outdated capital ships are crewed by outdated droids and they don’t even have enough fighters to protect them, but rather than depict the potentially interesting dynamic this suggests the series just tries to be Rebels again, the same path the movies took even though at this point both factions are even smaller than they were in the movies.

===Star Wars: The Mandalorian===

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti western's so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up. Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well know spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Adeptus_Arbites|Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way" their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times, (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing). The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand awesome.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Jedi''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

==Wookieepedia==
One of the largest fan wikis ever created, this bad boy is extensively cited, has enormous variety, and has page upon page of talk. It was if Lexicanum, the 40k fan wiki, and our own glorious site were fused into a terrible beast.

==Impact on 1d4chan and associated games etc==

Star Wars has had subtle and clear impacts on a number of other franchises and genres and it can be ''incredibly'' hard to gauge the extent of it all. Certainly it didn't create the concepts of sci-fi, space battles, sweeping storylines, and a blending of mystical and scientific ideas, but it certainly popularized them during the years of the original trilogy and influenced many people that would go on to have interests in sci-fi, fantasy and epic adventure today.

Hell, look me in the eye and tell me that the lightsaber didn't give us the [[power weapon]]. But then again, magic weapons.
==Sabacc and Pazaak==
A rather unusual entry here but it's well in line, Sabacc is an actual tabletop card game from the Star Wars universe which is basically a hybrid of Poker and Blackjack. A Sabacc Deck has 76 cards, most of which in four suits of 16 cards numbered one to 16, plus sixteen wildcards in two sets with values that were either negative or (in the case of the Idiot) Zero. The goal of the game is to have a set of three cards who's total as close as possible to, but not over, 23 or -23. If you got 23/-23 (Pure Sabacc) which could only be beaten by an Idiot's Array (One Idiot, a two and a three, thus 23). The stakes are raised every cycle until the cards go down or one player is left standing who gets the pot.

The notable thing about Sabacc that sets it apart from real world card games is that the Cards can change value every turn. A Pure Sabacc can easily become an instant lose 25 and an absolutely lousy hand can become an Idiot's Array. They can be stabilized to fix their value, but everyone knows when you do so. This feature has so far prevented Sabacc from being released in tabletop form as of yet. ''(Of course, there are ways to deal with this, such as simply re-dealing unfixed cards, but never let it be said that nerds will choose practicality over purity.)''

In universe, Han Solo won the Millenium Falcon off Lando in a game of Sabacc.

Pazaak is an older game from an in-universe perspective, similar to Blackjack but its player versus player rather than player versus dealer and also has some aspects of a collectible card game. Goal of the game is to raise cards from the main deck until their total value is 20 or they can also choose to stand if they get close but don't want to risk it. Best out of five wins.

CCG-aspect of Pazaak comes from the sidedeck: both players collect ten cards for their side deck and then randomly take four cards from their side deck to their hand in the beginning of the game. Hand cards are used to either lower or raise the total value: so if the player raises cards from the main deck to the total value of 25, they can prevent dropping out if they have a -5 card or higher in their hand.
Cards which only either raise or lower the value are the most common of the side cards.
More rarer are cards which can be used to both raise and lower the value.
Then there are flip cards, which change certain main deck cards on the table to negative ones. So if the player plays a 2&4 flip card, all 2:s and 4:s on the table become -2:s and -4:s. Flip cards exist in 2&4:s and 3&6:s.
Then there is the double card, which doubles the value of the last played card. So if the player raises a 5 from the main deck, playing the double card would turn it into a 10.
Finally, the rarest side deck card is the tiebreaker, which grants the player a win if the game would otherwise end in a tie.

==Tabletop games for Star Wars==

=== Role-playing Games ===

[[West End Games]] made a Star Wars [[role-playing game]] called [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] AKA '''Star Wars D6'''. Like many West End products, it's a good game with the great misfortune of being published by West End games.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] picked up the license later and made two distinct RPGs based on their [[d20 System]], called [[Star Wars D20]] (imaginatively). Could be fun, but generally broken as hell, much like [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|its parent game]]. It was then utterly revised that into what they called the '''Saga Edition''', which is relatively balanced and pretty good.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars Roleplaying Game|a whole line of Star Wars-themed RPGs]], each one focusing on a specific style of play. You want to play a bunch of scruffy space outlaws (Edge of the Empire), members of the nascent Rebellion (Age of Rebellion), or exiled Jedi Knights (Force and Dedtiny), then they got you covered. Unlike their [[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]] games, which are all ''juuuuust'' different enough from one another to completely buttfuck any attempts at blending, all three gamelines use identical mechanics and are fully cross-compatible. Uses symbol-counting [[dice pool]]s with ludicrously overpriced custom dice.
Like the other RPGs they decided with the retardedly similar name, and thus this one is sometimes called '''Star Wars FFG''' to avoid confusion.

FFG have kept milking the franchise and in summer 2017, decided to [[Necromancer | reanimate]] the [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] with a "30th Year Anniversary Edition" print of the original game. It '''''finally''''' shipped in July 2018 after spending a year in limbo.

=== Card Games ===

The big [[card game]] set in the Star Wars universe is the [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]. It's no longer produced by Decipher, but there is still a sufficiently large player community to organize annual tournaments, rule on cards, and so on. SWCCG was radically different from the norm of card games, being divided into light and dark side cards with different backings, with light and dark always playing against each other. For tournament play a player would need both a light and dark deck.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] made the [[Star Wars Trading Card Game]].

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars: The Card Game]].

Obviously, nobody is capable of creating a Star Wars card game with an interesting name.

Aside from the real, physical, games there was also ''Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game''. It was a real, functioning, card game within the MMO that used all virtual cards. Unfortunately no server emulators have implemented it yet.

=== Miniature Games ===
[[Wizards of the Coast]] did a tabletop battles game imaginatively called Star Wars: Miniatures, based on an extremely dumbed down version of the D&D ruleset. The figures were meant to tie in with the Saga edition RPG, it wasn't terrible on its own, just impossible to collect for competitive play since figures came in random booster packs so you never know what you were getting for what faction. Who could possibly stand for that?

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is producing the [[X-Wing]] miniatures game based on individual starfighter combat (because, let's be honest, that's what ''Star'' Wars is all about). They have also released [[Star Wars: Armada]] which is a larger scale "fleet" combat simulator, using capital ships and squadrons of starfighters.

'''Star Wars: Imperial Assault'''

The latest [[Fantasy Flight Games]] addition to its Star Wars related games is a mix between a miniature board game and a skirmish wargame. It has two play modes:

One for campaign play where 1-4 players control a team of Rebel heroes and another player has the role of the DM, who controls the Imperial forces. The campaign, as the name suggests, focuses on character personalization, xp gain and the like, which you can find in any light RPG-esque (board)game. The main goal is to get a few friends together and casually play through the missions. Think of it as a Star Wars version of the original [[Hero Quest]].

The other play mode is skirmish play, where two players each get to assemble a team of miniatures plus a command deck (cards that have specific effects when played) and play against each other in an open-play scenario. The play area is still very limited to a few game tiles (as in a campaign mission) but players are free to bring whatever they want (with a few limitations of course). The skirmish part of Imperial assault is as close as you can get to an actual Star Wars skirmish wargame, but it is a missed opportunity from Fantasy Flight to create a true skirmish wargame (ala [[Infinity (wargame)|Infinity]]), not based on tiles and so confined spaces. Who knows what they have plans for though...

'''Star Wars Legion'''

And Fantasy Flight have now given us a fully fledged wargame, complete with AT-ST in the first wave. (They're 32mm scale, which means [[Games Workshop|no reusing your Imperial Assault miniatures]].) Legion has an integrated turn system, and the usual FF custom dice and forest worth of dead trees in cards and tokens that will be familiar to X-Wing and Armada players. The miniatures are PVC, reasonably detailed, easy to assemble pieces. A standard battle is 800 points, which could be anywhere from half a dozen to 16 units on the field, with an average army fielding 8-12 units comprising 30-ish models.

=== Board Games ===

The most famous and arguably best one is [[Star Wars: Rebellion]], an asymmetric two-player game that plays through the Original Trilogy in a wargame/worker placement-esque game. The Empire player must expand their already huge military base over the galaxy to build more ships and huge superweapons while searching for the Rebel Base, while the Rebels do their best to bite them in their heel, obscuring their movements and annoying the Empire until they have enough support to overthrow the Empire. As a [[Fantasy Flight Games|FFG]] boardgame, it's filled with a ludicrous amount of bits and pieces (including sweet models of Star Destroyers, Death Stars and Calamari Cruisers), as well as the trademark filled-with-small-exceptions ruleset. It's pretty sweet and still considered one of the best board games of its kind.

=== Card Miniature Games ===

In the late 00's, WizKids produced a short lived construct-able miniatures Star Wars game based on their styrene card system for Pirates of the Spanish Main. Although the game sold well, when NECA bought WizKids from Topps the rights did not transfer and it went out of print.

==Video Games for Star Wars==

To put it bluntly, every game which could possibly have ''Star Wars'' slapped onto it, exists. Flight simulators. Racers. Rail shooters. Doom clones. MMOs. Age of Empires reskins. Hell, there's even a Kinect variety game. Here's a few standouts...

* '''Knights of the Old Republic''': A pair of single player RPGs depicting a Sith war several thousand years before ''A New Hope''. KotOR is widely regarded as the best Star Wars video game ever, and was the framework for BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' series. Of all the Legends stuff, KotOR appears to still be in good standing with Disney since they continue to borrow from it. The sequel by Obsidian was the original skubtastic take on the franchise TLJ wanted to be but failed miserably. Got an MMO simply called "Old Republic" (since you can play as things other than Jedi and Sith) that is the sequel, which had a very rough start but stabilized enough to still survive to this day somehow). Possibly still canon in the Disney continuity since a lot of things get borrowed or referenced from it. Also the only thing in the EU to still receive new content.

* '''Jedi Knight:''' A series that started of as an early FPS named Dark Forces (so early that it was the time when FPS games were still known as [[Doom]]-clones) but Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had the protagonist become a Jedi. The Dark Forces name was dropped in favor of Jedi Knight after this. The series combines surprisingly deep lightsaber combat with standard shooting, though the levels can get very mazy at times. Introduced Kyle Katarn, one of the most popular characters from EU. Unfortunately, there has not been a new game since 2003's ''Jedi Academy'' and likely will never be thanks to Disney.

* '''Republic Commando''': An FPS that has the player command a squad of commandos. Its a great shooter but unfortunately, it never received a sequel and to make things worse, ended on a cliffhanger. The second act of the game, set entirely on a drifting Acclamator-class assault ship is particularly memorable and highly atmospheric. If one can look past outdated graphics, its worth trying out for anyone who wants a good FPS experience.

* '''Empire at War''': Made by the original developers of [[Command and Conquer]], it is the most notable strategy game to have come out of Star Wars. Notable for featuring three different modes of play: ground battles, space battles and galactic conquest map. Though ground battles are a bit meh, the space battles are great and the galactic conquest is certainly more interesting than only playing random skirmish matches. Even though its over 10 years old, it has a very active modding community. Republic at War, which changes the games Galactic Civil War setting to Clone Wars and Thrawns Revenge, set much further into the Galactic Civil War than portrayed in the films, are particularly great. There is also a remake mod in the works, aiming to bring the game up to modern standards in terms of visuals, sound and UI and the results do look good. Unfortunately, no great 40k mod.

* '''Star Wars Galaxies''': An early MMO, launched after ''Everquest'' but before ''WoW''. Galaxies is noteworthy for making force powers a prestige achievement requiring enormous in-game effort to unlock. The first expansion pack added a subgame that's a pretty solid flight game in its own right and the game eventually added an original, fully playable, trading card game that sadly has not yet been implemented in any simulator. Then ''World of Warcraft'' hit, Sony panicked and made Jedi a starting class and replaced the skill system with massive level grind, and offered refunds to the raging army of neckbeards. Subscription numbers tanked and never recovered. It would effectively be replaced by ''The Old Republic'', an MMO using the acclaimed KotOR setting. Like most "dead" MMOs that people loved it still lives on through illegal private servers (don't worry, the guys providing it would get busted, not people playing on it).

* '''X-Wing (and TIE Fighter)''': A series of ''Wing Commander'' clones released in the 90's. While badly dated today, they were the best fighter sims of their time, and if you can get past the highly primitive graphics some people still consider them to be the best to this day. Interestingly, TIE Fighter is largely seen as the best of the series while the N64 era Rogue Squadron and Shadows Of The Empire games are seen as being far more visually modern but largely inferior sequels. Did we mention you had to use a flight stick controller basically made for these games to really do well at these?

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2005)''': Not to be confused with the one released by EA in 2017. Solid game from the new-defunct Pandemic studio (fuck you, EA) in 2005 told from the perspective of a clone trooper that survived all the way up to the battle of Hoth, with a very down to earth boots on the ground approach. Also, just being thrown into random matches as a soldier because fun. Despite some issues, it remains the high point of the Battlefront series as well as the entire PS2 era, and on PC still has fans via an active modding community to this day. There is of course also the original one but the second one pretty much completely overshadowed it.

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)''': The one by EA. You've probably heard everything important. An absolute mess at launch due to its lootbox-heavy progression system, so much so that it started discussion even on government level about lootboxes that continues to this day. A comment by EA that became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Yet despite all this, two years later, the game is arguably one of the best Star Wars experiences one can have and an Anakin-level redemption story. Like the previous Battlefront II, it completely overshadowed its predecessor.

* '''Jedi: Fallen Order''': It took them years but finally, EA managed to deliver a Star Wars game that is great on launch without cramming it with e-transactions. Its plot focuses on an unfortunate Jedi renegade between ''Revenge'' and ''A New Hope'' who's on the hunt for a hidden database that might document all the Force-sensitive individuals in the galaxy. A game inspired primarily by games such as Dark Souls and Uncharted, its a great action-adventure game in its own right and a must-play for any Star Wars fan.

* '''Monopoly Star Wars''': Its Star Wars Monopoly. With 90's FMV that plays for every square you land on. On floppy disks. Considered fucking amazing at the time, its too strange and tabletop to not mention. Also one of the last pre-Prequel things released.

* '''Super Star Wars''': A heavily modified retelling of the original trilogy (what, you don't remember how Luke chased down the Sandcrawler and murdered all the Jawas as well as their giant rat god in order to rescue R2-D2?) that was one of the ways to say "hard as fuck" by namedropping a game prior to Dark Souls existing. Amusing for the insanity of the added content in order to make a platformer sidescrolling beat'em'up as well as how neckbeardy you have to be to punish yourself trying to beat it without cheating.

* '''Star Wars: Yoda Stories''': A game geared for kids, released the same year as Monopoly above. Players play as Luke sometime after Empire Strikes Back, although an odd alternate version where Han sometimes is free from carbonite and Boba Fett and sometimes is not. They are assigned a quest by Yoda which requires them to traverse one or more procedurally generated planets doing whatever odd crap Yoda felt was necessary, including sometimes fighting Vader. Recieved middling scores as a PC release, with some individuals HATING the game and using it as a benchmark for how much they hate something when comparing the two, although to be fair that is because distributors tried to sell it like a full game when in reality its supposed to just be freebie software that came with other purchases and was meant to go with Solitaire and space pinball as default games on a computer to waste time with. It has lapsed into obscurity thanks to even those reviewers largely being forgotten on the modern internet. Noteworthy for being played on a grid with simultaneous turn-based movement with all enemies and NPCs on a screen, feeling very much like a tabletop game at times. A simple puzzle game, where getting blocked in a corner without enough space to pass the time by an idiot NPC is more dangerous than any foe.

*'''Shadows of the Empire''': Made on the Nintendo 64 and Windows PC, you play as Dash Rendar, a scoundrel in a ship like Han Solo working for the Rebellion. Takes place during Episode V as a side story. Despite being much beloved by fans for years and years, it's sadly not aged well thanks to the rather peculiar control scheme of the N64 and the graphics not having aged like cheap cheese in the sun. Main enemy of the game is a xeno named Xisor who is just a real uppity crime boss (and apparently a prince). This game has an absolute great opening first part where you're flying in a Snowspeeder on Hoth killing Imperials left and right while trying to use the cables to crash the AT-ATs like in the movie. After that the game begins to kinda just carry on with awkward controls.

==Assorted list of Awesome From Star Wars==
* Fucking ''[[Lightsaber|Lightsabers!]]''
* The fucking [[Approved music|OST]]
* What is likely the greatest duel in cinematic history, that takes place on a [[Death World|lava planet.]]
* Deathly Stormtroopers, heroic Clonetroopers or sinister First Order troopers; whatever they're called, stormtroopers are awesome!
* Darth Vader whenever he gets a speaking line or to murder rebel scum - that is to say, all the time.
* Darth Maul in both The Phantom Menace and TCW.
* Lightsaber Rifles
* The entirety of the Umbara campaign, where <s>Imperial Guardsmen</s> Clone Troopers die in the dozens attempting to win some godforsaken planet, earning them balls of titanium that make the guard look ba- {{BLAM| '''*BLAM*''' Heresy!}}
* 97% of the Creatures.
* 98% of the Starfighter designs.
* Costumes that mix about every possible inspiration, Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese, Ancient Greece and Rome, Elizabethan, Moebius or Pulp Sci-Fi from the 60's, giving the whole series a distinctive style and gives Padme Amidala an excuse to show off with all her dresses.
* Boba and Jango Fett and the rest of the Mandalorians.
* KOTOR (both games) plot making you think this shit is actually logical and has so much philosophical background. One of the creepiest depictions of the Universe. Everything is brutal, with big vibrating knives, blood, those machines for Sith snuff movies, more blood, bastards, badass bastards and so on. Everything while somebody is talking with you about existence.
* Our saviour Lord Revan. He's like if [[Horus|fucking Horus]] just became [[Big Bad Evil Guy|fucking bad]] (but not that [[Erebus|bad]]) to fucking destroy the [[Chaos Gods|Dark Gods]] so he can solve his daddy issues.
**but he's more virile, deadly, powerful, charismatic and cool.
* Lightsabers.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi.
* The High Ground.
* TIE fighters. They have the most distinctive scream of any fighter in cinematic history that just yells "I'm evil!". Tell me I'm wrong. I'll wait.
** The fact that they managed to do that using what is essentially a shitty visual pun.
* Most of Episode 3.
* The entirety of Anakin's story, especially when you add the Clone Wars and prequels. While you're at it, watch CinemaWins' perspective on it the series.
* Admiral Ackbar the Memeable!
* Palpatine getting into some Tzeentchian-level scheming and backstabbing in order to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic.
* Grand Admiral Thrawn: So awesome that he rose to a high rank in the anthropocentric Empire despite being an alien and was one of the first (and rare few) things to be imported straight from Legends to Disney.
* Imperial Pilots get a mention, seeing as they fly literal garbage fighters against superior rebel fighters. By garbage, we mean that even the Imperium have better fighter designs than these guys. At least Imperial fighters conserve the life of the fucking pilot.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi again.
* Princess, later Senator Leia Organa; the original badass-yet-hot boss lady in space. Ends up leading two separate, successful underground freedom movements against impossible odds. Did we mention she's a Jedi in both canons?
* Han Solo, who is so badass that hot Leia falls in love. He has the smuggler's best friend, a Wookie, who is also the worst opponent you can face in a [[Chess|Dejarik match]].
* Just... Star Destroyers. When you see a huge, imposing warship from an evil Empire, this is the granddaddy they all look up to.
* Oh, did we mention the lightsabers ?

== See Also: ==
* ''[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/ Darths & Droids]'': A webcomic, made using photo-stills of the ''Star Wars'' movies to tell a story about gamers blundering through each of the six movies in sequence... though not quite exactly how you might expect. Think ''DM of the Rings'' in overall visual style, though unlike ''DM of the Rings'', ''Darths & Droids'' features several heavy twists on the actual events of the films, subplots about the players and their lives outside the game alongside the campaign, and a better overall quality of gamer.
* "[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html/ Endor Holocaust]": An excellent example of the [[skub]] Star Wars can create. Rebuttal: "[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/fanart/endortruth20040810.pdf Endor Rebuttal]"
*[[Timothy Zahn]]
*[[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]]
*[[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*[[Star Wars:Resistance]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

Star Wars

2020-03-13T22:53:54Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* The original EU/Star Wars "Legends" */

{{Star Wars}}
[[File:Star-Wars-Logo (1).jpg|center|500px|]]

{{Topquote|A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....|Star Wars opening text}}
'''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D0ZQPqeJkk/ Star Wars]''' is one of, if not ''the'', most influential media franchises of modern times, let alone its effect on science-fiction and fantasy. Indeed, among [[/tg/|nerddom]], it is challenged by only a few others, like [[Star Trek]] and [[The Lord of the Rings]].

The incredibly ardent fandom is spread worldwide and has a strong presence in popular culture. Many of the characters, like Darth Vader and Yoda, are iconic even to the general public. John Williams' score for the original trilogy is probably the best-known film score of all time. The universe has spawned numerous video games, hundreds of novels, multiple TV shows, one of the largest merchandising franchises ever, and, relevant to /tg/, a whole bunch of board, card, and roleplaying games.

It is also the current leading world source of [[Skub]].

==The Basic Concept==
Star Wars was originally a series of epic science-fantasy "space operas" that roughly followed the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. They're set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," [Note: this makes the entire series a fairy tale] where a mysterious life force called (reasonably enough) the Force permeates everything. This, in turn, can be wielded by certain people, giving them pseudo-magical abilities; thank the Emperor (no, the other one) there were no Commissars in that universe. Those who use it for good become mystical, selfless warrior monks called Jedi, whereas those who use it for evil are ruthless, self-serving bastards called Sith. However, the Force must always be in balance, so any time the Sith arise to cause imbalance, the Jedi have to pull together and take them out to restore the natural order.

The so-called Original Trilogy (made up of films IV through VI, released from 1977 to 1983) followed a young man named Luke Skywalker who becomes a Jedi and re-balances the Force. Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance is fighting to end the oppressive Galactic Empire, which is secretly led by the Sith. Luke and his Rebel companions eventually defeat the evil Emperor Palpatine, but along the way they discover that his lieutenant, Darth Vader, is actually Luke's father. A financial, critical, popular and cultural H-bomb, these movies are basically the filter through which Generation X perceives the world... for better or worse.

The so-called Prequel Trilogy (made up of films I through III, released from 1999 to 2005) explained how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and how the Galactic Empire was established. This involves a lot of convoluted politicking in the Republic, which is then torn apart in the Clone Wars, where the Republic (with an army of clones led by the Jedi) fights against the Confederacy (with an army of robots led by [[Necrons|General Grievous]] and secretly controlled by the Sith). It was not as well received as the first trilogy, for reasons we'll talk about below.

There's also a so-called Sequel Trilogy (made up of film VII and presumably films VIII and IX), which started in 2015 and picked up the story some three decades after the Emperor's defeat with a new generation of heroes taking on the remains of the evil Empire, which is a group of extremist former Imperials calling themselves the First Order. However, Episode VII aka ''The Force Awakens'', was directed by J.J. Abrams, who's mostly known for the [[skub|skubtastic]] [[Star Trek]] reboot, while Episode VIII was written and directed by Ryan Johnson who was a young director known for plot twists and genre experimentation on a handful of movies and television episodes that openly said he wanted to "subvert expectations" and make half of viewers dislike his work, then got pissed when half of them disliked his work. The result managed to fracture the Star Wars fanbase over issues of dull rehashing for VII and a whole laundry list of reasons for VIII (ranging from small ones such as it being too different, to major issues like half the movie being filler), as well as those who still enjoyed them and very little common ground between the three groups.

Finally, there are the so-called Anthology movies, standalone one-shots involving characters and plotlines that aren't a part of the main "Saga" films, except they kind of are. The first, Rogue One (2016), is an immediate prequel to Episode IV that follows those Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans. The second film follows a young Han Solo and pals Chewie and Lando. A third rumored one follows Boba Fett.

There are also three separate TV series. The first one, ''Clone Wars'', was based on traditional animation, whereas the later one, '''''The''' Clone Wars'', was a weird 3D animation. They're both pretty good. There was also a terrible theatrical release that was basically just an advertisement for ''The Clone Wars'', but, since it's even worse than the Prequel Trilogy (hint: babysitting Jabba the Hutt's kid), nobody talks about it much. The third series is Disney's ''"Rebels"'' which is set between Episodes III-IV and it takes itself far less seriously than Clone Wars did, and is more of a homage to the original trilogy since not every character in the series is the owner of a lightsaber nor are they constantly talking about grown-up politics, senators and trade embargoes... pretty much the things that clogged up the plot of the prequel trilogy.

And then there's the whole Expanded Universe, which covers pretty much everything not covered by the films, like the Old Republic (set thousands of years before the prequel trilogy, when there were a hell of a lot more Sith and Jedi around) and the New Republic (set immediately after the original trilogy, explaining what became of all the characters. It could also reach 40k levels of grimdark with races like the [[Dark Eldar|Yuuzhan]] [[Tyranids|Vong]] characters like [[Vampire|Darth Nihilus]] and beings like [[Old Ones|Abeloth]].

The EU is no longer considered in the main canon of the films and TV series, due to the new sequel trilogy which does not follow EU, the reason for this being, according to Disney, that following EU would restrict their creative freedom. The reaction to this was, well, [[skub|mixed, for lack of a better word.]] They've since noted that they'll slot ''some'' of it in on a case-by-case basis, but the canon is in a highly fluid state at the moment. EU is now officially called Star Wars Legends, though most fans still refer to it as EU.

==Why is it so popular?==

Star Wars is as accessible as science fiction gets. It doesn't require extensive knowledge of a fictional world (a la ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' or ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'') or cultural background (as ''[[Star Trek]]'' sometimes does) to make sense. Those elements are present for those who want them, but they largely stay in the (very rich and vibrant) background. It has well-shot action and good ''enough'' dialogue to make it interesting for both kids and adults (as well as allowing parents who grew up with it to watch it with their children, thereby hooking the next generation of viewers). It has simple, good-vs.-evil themes that resonate with almost anyone, anywhere, at any time. The science fiction elements are generally handled well if you don't obsess over making science fiction realistic and hard. It's a prime gateway drug for sci-fi which still holds up to the experienced eye, [[Isaac Asimov]] saw and rather enjoyed the films. All in Fourteen hours of cinema, plus optional sides for those who want it.

There's a ton of merchandise that is, of course, really cool. Also, given it's crossed over into the mainstream, many people feel comfortable being part of the community without feeling judged as "nerds" (as they might with ''Lord of the Rings'', ''D&D'', ''Star Trek'', ''Warhammer'', etc.).

Again, they roughly follow the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. If you think about it, 6 of the 9 films can be summarized as: hero begins his journey under the tutelage of a wise (more or less) man, they encounter a threat which has captured/enslaved a princess/girl, who was in one way or another connected to an important secret (usually a superweapon but could be the identity of a political figure or the location of someone); the heroes save the princess/girl but someone dies tragically in a battle against the villain while someone else is blowing up a space station or a spaceship afterwards they are happy, they celebrate and mourn the loss of the poor bloke who died.

Additionally, the first film can be summarized as a samurai and a gunslinger team up to save a princess from Nazis in space. That is multiple cinematic genres at once, following the style of the epic myth.

==Setting==
Due to article bloat, [[Star Wars Setting]] is now its own page.

==The rise of the original trilogy==

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away....etc etc you all know the lines.

A man called George Lucas had the idea to create a series of epic sci-fi space operas that would become so successful that Disney would take notice and give it the franchise fluttering eye lashes, trying to seduce it.

They would be called... ''Flash Gordon''.

Unfortunately for Georgie boy, and fortunately for modern nerddom, Dino de Laurentiis already owned ''Flash Gordon'', and were busy making their own, hilariously eighties version, so he said, screw it, I'll make my own!

He decided to start with the fourth movie in the series he envisioned, for at the time he didn't have the special effects to create the first three to the standard he wanted, and/or he just kinda made up the first movie as he went along (drawing heavily on Akira Kurosawa's seminal samurai action film, ''Hidden Fortress'' in the process as well as the book [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces''], a complex 1949 Joseph Campbell analysis of the various mythologies of human history all boiled down into the basic archtypes and elements required in heroic myth). So Episode Four ''A New Hope'' was created (simply titled ''Star Wars'' at the time) and it is not an exaggeration to say it changed the face of sci-fi and general moviemaking forever, bringing a new era of special effects and imagination to cinema and changing the lives of many who would go onto to become dedicated fan boys.

Originally, the studio had forced Lucas to take ever-increasing paycuts for what they were sure was going to be a flop, and only let him keep merchandising rights. However, whatever his flaws, George Lucas was a man of vision. Having helped pioneer the summer blockbuster, he went on to do the same to ginormous piles of movie-tie-in memorabilia. His production company, Lucasfilm ended up rolling in dosh, and with Episode Five ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and Episode Six ''The Return of the Jedi'', the legend of Star Wars and its place in cultural history was assured.

tl;dr: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4w7ChpuaM Pretty much this.]

==The coming of the prequel trilogy==
With the year 2000 coming, George Lucas felt that special effects technology had reached the level he wanted and began to create the first three movies in the star wars story he had envisioned. (As a side-note, he also made some touch-ups to the three original films, re-mastering them with special effects and a couple of extra scenes that weren't doable with the eighties' animatronics. But those were mostly accepted/shrugged away since they didn't deeply modify anything.)

The hype for the movies was immense.

And then the first movie, Episode One ''The Phantom Menace'' came out.....and there was nerd rage beyond expectation.

Part of the problem was that the immense expectations of the fandom had grown until anything less-than-perfect simply would not do, so perhaps that is somewhat to blame for the reaction to the prequel trilogy. In a vacuum one has to admit that they aren't completely ''[[Twilight|terrible films]]'' .

Episode Two ''Attack of the Clones'' and Episode Three ''Revenge of the Sith'' followed after a few years each and didn't garner nearly as much hatred, though fans complained they didn't match the greatness of the original trilogy, more concerned with flashy action and effects than competent story-telling; but hooo-boy did it deliver in flashy action, with laser armed [[MI-24 Hind|MI-24's]] full of <s>storm</s>troopers extracting jedi from a coliseum full of shooty killbots.

''Revenge of the Sith'' did, however, receive higher ratings than ''Return of the Jedi'', and is generally seen as the best and most-complete of the three prequel films as a story. Unusually the novelization alters some details and is considered a legitimately good book on its own merits.

What was generally more well received (despite a rocky start with a two hour pilot being pressed into service as a movie and an art style that took some time to gel) during this time for Star Wars was the Clone Wars animated series (both the traditionally-animated ''Clone Wars'' and the later seasons of the CGI show '''''The''' Clone Wars'', the latter which most everyone agrees is what the prequels should have been), following the war between the Republic and the Confederacy that sprung up during the time between the second and third of the prequels.

It'd be ''really'' hard to find a group of movies more skubtastic than the prequel trilogy, and saying a good or bad thing about it in front of the wrong crowd's sure to provoke huge amounts of nerdrage. In defense of the prequel trilogy's sins, they did at least do their own thing. Because of how much money the original trilogy made, practically every form of media in the 80s and 90s aped it to some form or another, and instead of falling back on the same old shit the prequels branched out and tried to get out of the franchise's comfort zone a bit. While a lot of it sucked, it blazed a trail for better writers to follow and helped liven up the universe by showing us the galaxy beyond fuckhueg spaceships and faux-Western shitholes like Tatooine. And all but the most [[Neckbeard|diehard OT purists]] can get behind shit like Naboo architecture, the Clone Army and Mace "The Ace" Windu. From a story perspective the worst sin of the prequels was demystifying the force, and subsequent works have largely swept that detail under the carpet.

==Disney and the sequel trilogy==

Finally, all the efforts by Disney to woo George Lucas paid off and in 2012 Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise for 4 billion dollars and immediately announced they would produce a new trilogy of films set after the original trilogy.

Expectations were almost as high as the private fears of the fans. Bringing on the creative talent behind the [[skub|skubtastic]] ''[[Star Trek]]'' reboot was equally... well, [[skub|take a wild guess]].

For sake of sanity, these section have been condensed. Read at your own peril.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 7: The Mouse Awakens===
''Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens'' debuted in December of 2015, and reception was what you would expect: the film was immediately a massive success from a monetary standpoint as everyone ([[China|almost]]) everywhere rushed to the theaters in response to the hype, with children engaging in as many repeat viewings as their parent's money could allow as fans did the same thing with their own. It has become a financial hit with the general public and a (critically) generally well-reviewed piece, with decent cinematography, special effects, technical stuff, etc. It also went on to become the third biggest financial success in film history (at the time), when not adjusted for inflation.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Fan response was a good deal more mixed. Many criticize the plot for rehashing Episode IV, without doing anything to establish its own identity and claim that it had a bland main character, [[Mary Sue|who had too many abilities]] whereas others find the replication of ''Star Wars'' feel an acceptable trade and praise it for being a decent action film, [[skub|and claim the lead doesn't outdo any of the previous main characters]].

Some would argue that by rehashing the original trilogy it basically nullified the accomplishments of the original crew; the Empire's still around, they've got yet another superweapon, Han & Leia split up, Luke failed to rebuild the Jedi, etc. Other fans praised it simply for being a new Star Wars that was better than the prequel trilogy (expectations were lowered due to those, to be honest). Some see poor storytelling when there was no proper showing of what went on in the galaxy 3 decades since Palpatine died, and not explaining what caused big character changes like why Han returned to his old ways or Luke ran from his friends was critical. Other say this is going to be explained in the next film and people should keep their curiosity. Some argue even with their superweapon, none of the villains feel threatening. Others argue the incompetence of the main villain is a fresh change and the point of the plot will be to see him change, to be more competent, or even learn to become good.

Overall, those against argued JJ Abrams' mystery box approach may do well for a TV series but does not mesh with films that take years to make. Defendants held the position that fans should wait to see whether the next film will do anything with the unexplained plot points.

Coincidentally, when Hamill and Fisher were originally approached by Disney to reprise their roles as Luke and Leia, they ''didn't want to do it'' right from the start. But, they didn't want to give an out-and-out "no" answer either, so they told Disney they'd return if Harrison Ford agreed to return as Han Solo as well. Knowing how much Ford ''hated'' Solo, Hamill and Fisher figured they were safe, until Disney irresistibly sweetened the deal for Ford by agreeing to kill off his character, thus forcing a reluctant Hamill and Fisher to make good on their deal... [[skub|only for the three characters to never appear on the screen at the same time.]] To be fair, Hamill has a history of saying he won’t do something only to immediately agree like he’s making a standard sitcom gag in real life, even if that usually just applies to still voicing the Joker in Batman media.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars Rebels===
Disney also released their own CGI series: ''Star Wars: Rebels'', which is actually pretty ok (considering that it airs on Disney XD, it should be no surprise that they've toned down the graphic depictions of gratuitous violence, much to the chagrin of [[Neckbeards|those who love overly gory deaths]]). It focuses less on the Jedi that have come to dominate the franchise and more on the "boots on the ground" experience of the average characters, and while the show started slow and small, the plot gained momentum as the series progressed, especially after the first season.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Rebel movement starts to grow, several characters return from ''The Clone Wars'', and the enemies the main characters have to face steadily get darker and more dangerous as more of the Empire’s attention gets attracted. When Darth Vader gets involved (played by none other than [[Awesome|James Earl Jones himself]]) he immediately proceeds to [[Awesome|open a 24-pack of unstoppable whoop-ass on the rebel scum]]. The return of Maul resulted in three character deaths (possibly four), the crippling of one main character with another well on his way down the dark side, and to top it all off Maul himself was on the loose once again. Things did not turn out so well [[Grimdark|last time that happened]], so expect the body count to rise, especially with [[Creed|Grand Admiral Thrawn]] now also coming onto the scene. The show also continues the trend set by ''The Clone Wars'' in making the Force mystical again, though whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how you felt about the <s>bullshit</s> <s>scientific</s> [[Skub|skubtastic]] midichlorian explanation of the Prequels. The animation is on point with ''The Clone Wars'', which considering it's Disney should surprise less than nobody. Oh, and Steve Blum voices one of the main characters. However, it is also noted that Star Wars Rebels may indeed have [[Grimdark|dark ending]]. Which, to a degree, it did. An important character dies, and his padawan flees into the unknown regions, leaving us with two other characters to go look for him after the second Death Star blows up.

[[Skub|The way that Filoni (the creator of Rebels and The Clone Wars) has handled the Mandalorians, a fan-favorite warrior-culture based upon the Scots and Vikings, has either been met with praise from those who despised Traviss and her overpowering of said culture, or utter RAGE that he turned many of them into either pacifist morons or bloodthirsty barbarians- usually that particular criticism comes from the Traviss fanboys]]. Do take note, however, that the old ways for the Mandalorians are making their way back into canon, such as the language, the emphasis on martial honor, and the decentralized nature of their government.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars: Rogue One===
December of 2016 brought us the first standalone Star Wars movie, "Rogue One", showing the theft of the original Death Star plans.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

While "Rogue One" can be justly criticized for lacking in character development, that was basically mandated by being set just before another movie whose actors were now 40 years too old to reprise their previous roles. The cast of the movie includes almost no one who appears in Episode IV, and the few familiar faces who do appear show up as cameos. (Fair warning: spoilers)

Accordingly, every main character dies by the end. It still manages to pack quite a lot of [[awesome]] into the movie, with Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk and Darth Vader all used to great effect. Rogue One also answers several questions, plugs several plot holes, and just generally makes A New Hope make a lot more sense in retrospect. (No wonder Vader wasn't impressed when Leia claimed to be on a "diplomatic mission.") It also has the distinctions of being the only Star Wars movie to focus on regular soldiers instead of Jedi, and being more like the original Star Wars than any of the sequels, including the other two of the main trilogy. (The original, back before it was "A New Hope", was a genre mashup of samurai + gunslinger rescue princess from space Nazis, then team up for a World War II dogfight. This one is wuxia cast + heist crew do a heist in a WWII trench warfare war zone. There's surprisingly little 'War' in Star Wars.) Much, much [[Skub]] still exists of course, since no Star Wars movie will ever please all the neckbeards but out of the five post-Disney Star Wars movies released so far, this one is definitely the least divisive and arguably the best of the bunch.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===Episode 8: The Last Royalty Check (aka zomg Luke dies!)===
On December 14 2017, ''Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi'' was released world wide. The critical reception was [[Bullshit|extremely positive]], with many critics considering it the best movie in the series since The Empire Strikes Back. The fan reception has been a great deal more negative and [[Skub|mixed]], and a number of fans are convinced that Disney leaned on media outlets to shill the new movie or else. If you have watched the Empire Strikes Back, you ''WILL'' be [[Rage|disappointed at best]], if you want to see a Star Wars film that would finally expand the characters of Kylo Ren and Rey, you ''WILL'' be satisfied and disappointed at the same time, if you want to watch the film because it is the last film starring the great and wonderful Carrie Fisher, you ''WILL'' feel hollow and sad inside, and if you came to see a pair of lightsaber-wielding punks involved in one of the [[Skub|greatest or worst lightsaber battles of the franchise, you ''WILL'' be pleased or horribly disappointed]]. The Last Jedi is seen as one of the most divisive films in the franchise by the fandom, [[FAIL|which is one hell of an achievement]] considering other films.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The complaints about The Last Jedi are many: the treatment of Luke (which even his actor, Mark Hamill, hated, to the point that he has no interest in playing Luke again), Leia's Superman asspull, Finn's plot arc that serves practically zero purpose and has him undergo the same character arc as the last movie, the forced humor, the complete disregard for established [[fluff]], disregard for even the most basic laws of physics, the fact that the central conflict is essentially the same as the one in the originals right down to the last stand ripped straight out of ''Empire'', the PC bullshit (a hipster admiral who the plot always treats as being in the right despite killing 90% of the Resistance, the Gilded Age planet arc that [[Namek|sucks up a third of the movie to no benefit,]] Rose expressing her desire to get BLACKED with a horrendous and forced #LoveTrumpsHate one-liner in the final act) added solely to virtue-signal and the whole thing being basically a 2,5h screed against the franchise it belongs to and the culture which spawned it.

Fans have also criticized the movie for dropping or discarding major plot points from TFA and repeatedly invoking Shamalamadingdong-tier plot twists for cheap gotchas that are somehow less interesting than the recycled cliches they play off of. Director Rian Johnson has responded by shitting on said critics and trying to defend the film on social media like something out of an ED or RW article. (Important note: George Lucas never tried to defend the prequels, despite the huge backlash at the time, and he agreed with fans that [[C.S Goto|The Star Wars Holiday Special]] was an abomination.) It later came out that Johnson had not been given any kind of roadmap beyond Lucas' old and unfinished concept scripts and was not allowed to see what Abrams had done until TLJ was too far into production to write in most of the previous movie's plot points, which makes the fail Disney's fault just as much as it is Johnson's. Except we also know that he had at least a modicum of influence over the ending of TFA, so they must have talked on at least some degree. As with TFA Lucasfilm has tried to paper over the holes with tie-in material, and just like TFA the fans recognize the damage control.

The Last Jedi has without a doubt torn the fanbase apart in ways even the prequels didn't come close to, with many fans declaring that they have dropped the sequel trilogy. Even Star Wars' famous merchandising has taken a mauling, as [[/toy/]] giggles at Rose Tico and General Hux figures warming shelves while new product shipments go straight from the transport case to the clearance bin.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg_FoEy8T_A I'm Solo, Han Solo, Han Solo]===
On May 25th 2018, the 41st anniversary of the franchise, ''Solo: A Star Wars Story'' was released. The general consensus seems to be that it is the most average film in the series. At the very least, most people agree that it is at least better than The Last Jedi (if barely) and the backlash from that movie can be felt even in Solo: many fans have chosen to boycott the movie. Even before release, many fans had derided the whole affair as unnecessary: no one was really asking for a Han Solo origin movie, particularly one without Harrison Ford. Han Solo's entire life history had already been explored thoroughly in EU novels and comics, so the movie could only be a retread or a retcon, both things most fanbases tend to disapprove of.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Whether it is because of this boycott or not, [[Not as planned|something no one expected happened:]] ''Solo'' was a box office bomb. Its opening weekend performed way below expectations and as of this writing, it has only made half of the money it needs for it to break even. Disney still continued to labor under the delusion that China would save their bottom line regardless of the fact that Star Wars has never been popular in China.

So what is it like? Well, rather than being a space opera like the other films, this is a space Western. Rather than being about large-scale battles and saving the galaxy from tyranny, it's about heists and the galactic underworld. (Except for the Mimban sequence, which you'd swear was lifted from a live-action Imperial Guard movie.) It's essentially Disney's reboot/retcon of the old EU Han Solo novels, taking things that were mentioned offhand in the original trilogy (like how Han did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs) and making that the subject of an entire movie. The film was perhaps cursed from the beginning due to its [[Fail|troubled production.]] How troubled? The lead needed an acting coach to get through his shoots (Han may have walked away with the Falcon, but Danny Glover's Lando stole the spotlight every time) and 70% of the movie had to be reshot by a different director due to [[Butthurt|creative differences]] between Lucasfilm and the original directors.

The fail only compounded when it premiered and fans got to see what those "creative differences" may have wrought: the writing staff started spewing bullshit to the press about Lando being "pansexual" with no precedent in any Star Wars production including ''Solo'', the film's tone is a schizophrenic nightmare to the last-minute reshoots and Han's sidekick for most of the movie is [[What|a self-built female droid social justice warrior]] named [[/v/|L3-37]]. Audiences ''cheered and applauded'' when that <s>man</s>human-hating self-insert character finally fucking died. Perhaps the most damning sin is that these are the movie's only notable qualities: take them away and you're left with a movie that would make you think "Huh, that was okay," and then never think about it again for the rest of your life, were it not for the crippling disappointment of seeing one of the most beloved franchises in the world fall so far. Between the boycotts, the mediocrity of the movie itself, and [https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Gawker certain news outlets] claiming that the driving force behind said boycotts was [[/pol/]], ''Solo'' cratered so badly that [[Exterminatus|all non-''Episode 9'' Star Wars movies were for a short time shelved indefinitely, and the only side-movie still being worked on is the obligatory Boba Fett origin movie, which is more likely to sell tickets based on the name alone.]] Incidentally, one of the writers picked by Lucasfilm to handle ''Solo'''s tie-in content, Cavan Scott, has been hired by [[Games Workshop]] for the [[Warhammer Adventures]] series.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker (aka Plan Palpa-Nine from Outer Space)===
Your opinion of this movie is very easy to predict based on what you thought of the others; if you found The Last Jedi to be "refreshing", you'll absolutely HATE this one. If you hate all Disney content aside from ''maybe'' The Mandalorian, you'll hate this one as much as the others. If you absolutely detested The Last Jedi but have mixed opinions of the rest, you'll probably consider this to be the best of the new movies to varying degrees of actual enthusiasm. The movie largely undoes or ignores swathes of the previous one.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

After finishing shooting, the film was shown to test audiences (which JJ Abrams lied never happened). The film was extremely poorly received, one of many reasons being because it had [[Mary Sue|Rey curb-stomping Palpatine by herself in the final battle]] (test audiences reportedly either laughing at the film or had to be stopped from walking out of the test screenings). The poor showing made (then) Disney CEO Bob Iger - who was overseeing the screening - furious, and he immediately ordered the film to be reshot. The resulting reshoots were so extensive, [http://archive.ph/RLj94 they spanned months and the film didn't have a final edit till December 2019, the month of release], causing trailers to be so desperate for footage that wouldn't be cut they had to fill half the length with footage from prior films and stuff used in prior trailers. Further complicating matters was that the ''very stupid'' plot was leaked months before release. Despite extensive denials from Disney and media outlets, the leaks were proven correct by getting then unrevealed names and plot objects right. Camera leaks the week before release showed very little of the fantastically stupid content leaked months beforehand was changed, only minor details.

Before reading on, be aware that Rey and Kylo are no longer movie-type Force users, they have been changed to video game characters. Like KOTOR and Jedi Academy type where you just get powers by killing enough dudes. None of the powers are new to the franchise, but have been rarely seen and in some cases never before have in movies. You should also know that unlike the first Visual Dictionary that mostly just gave little prop trivia and plot hooks for other works, and the second which was mostly irrelevant until it gets referenced in a decade or two, the final Visual Dictionary is damn near required reading (this shit will get a "VD" to indicate it) since a lot of explanations were cut in the reshoots and recuts. Like for example the connection between Rey and Kylo is a "Force Dyad", basically one soul in the Force that inhabits two bodies (setting up a bit of a snarl what happens when one dies and not the other, and implying the personality is mostly in the brain which is why they can have unique experiences, but whatever) and warps space/time. This is why Rey was inexplicably powerful and knew how to do shit instinctively, because Kylo's training passed onto her, and likewise her nonstop playing with X-Wing training sims as a child made him a badass pilot. Dyads used to be far more common in the KOTOR era, and were apparently the inspiration for the Sith Rule Of Two. This is never mentioned in the final cut of the film, but leaks show it was in one of the earlier ones.

The movie pressed on with breakneck speed that doesn't have time for musical interludes or wipe transitions, the opening crawl informing you that Palpatine has somehow returned and sent a message to the galaxy with the Resistance trying to rebuild and gather information, Rey being trained by Leia on the planet Ajan Kloss (AKA not!Yavin #2, VD) after repairing Anakin's lightsaber (VD) who had received partial training from Luke before stopping for reasons explained later in the movie and supplementing the rest with her pouring over the Jedi texts, and Kylo Ren trying to find Palpatine because his existence is a threat to his rule. The movie takes a lot of inspiration from KOTOR era lore with Ren finding a Sith McGuffin Holocron-type navigation device on Mustafar (VD) showing him the secret planet of the Sith (not Korriban/Pesegam/Moraband, this one is a planet in a red nebula that is under constant lightning storms called Exegol). There he finds a MASSIVE Sith cult that has kept itself secret and managed to not only build a fucking massive fleet of Star Destroyers equipped with planetkiller guns like something straight out of the old canon, but divisions of Stormtroopers, technicians, and officers to fill them along with the typical cultists in robes who administer to keeping Palpatine alive and seeing to his Sith alchemy shit...which includes tanks containing multiple clones of Snoke, revealing the guy was literally born looking like that with a manufactured backstory all so Palpatine could use him as a puppet to create the First Order (which is almost a meta commentary about the backstory controversy).

Kylo is offered the chance to be the new Emperor by Palpatine, who is a corpse kept barely alive through methods some would consider... Unnatural, while strapped to a machine with [[Lord Kroak|his spirit sticking nearby]] (the filmmakers zig-zagged on the nature of this; first it was the original Palpatine who had somehow duped everyone in ''Return of the Jedi'' with a clone stand in, then the reshoots changed it to the original's zombie-like rotting corpse animated by his lingering spirit and Lucasfilm later retconned him to be a zombie-like clone of Palpatine after the film's release). The only requirement for Palps to pass him Emperorship is killing Rey, although Ren is immediately suspicious of the other strings attached (including choking a guy in a hissyfit when that concern is voiced) and decides instead to recruit Rey again, this time as a co-Emperor.

Finn and Poe obtain information about a spy within the First Order (yeah, you know its fucking Hux even before they say there is a spy at all) while Rey gets visions during her training with Leia. The spy confirms that Palpatine is legit and the info about the fuckmassive deathfleet is legit, and Rey finds the Jedi texts contain notes from Luke about his search for that planet. They go to his last clue, a desert planet that isn't Tatooine and is the middle of a festival where they find Lando has been holed up enjoying himself since him and Luke traveled there. They are immediately spotted by the First Order and escape from them to find the ship of one of Palpatine's servants who had last been seen there. They fall into sinkholes around the ship created by giant tunneling worms, and find the skeleton of Sheev's boy as well as a Sith dagger. 3PO is programmed with the Sith language, but his programming from the Old Republic era forbids him from giving the translation to civilians. Rey manages to get the sand worms to leave them alone by using Force powers to heal one's wound, and they attempt to get the Sheev's servant's ship up and running before they are attacked by the First Order. Chewie is taken prisoner and Rey wrecks Kylo's TIE Fighter before the two engage in a Force tug of war to pull the transport Chewie is on, which ends in Rey accidentally Force Lightning it and causing it to explode when she becomes frustrated with the stalemate. Chewie is revealed to have been on another transport and is taken to Ren's flagship Star Destroyer while the heroes, instead of do something sensible like seek a Rebel leader who can give security clearance for 3PO's protocol (Leia's the obvious choice), they head to a planet under VERY Nazi-like occupation to find a droid technician who can hack 3PO's memory. They encounter a woman from Poe's past, revealing he was a former spice smuggler like Han until abandoning his crew (causing them to fall into debt and become bitter at him) to join the Resistance. She threatens to turn the group in to pay off their debt [[Mary Sue| but Rey kicks her ass, earning her respect and she takes them to the technician without further incident.]] The technician unlocks 3PO's memory at the cost of wiping him. The translation reveals the dagger is the key to finding the Sith navigation McGuffin they are looking for. During this BB-8 reactivates Sheev's servant's old droid, who doesn't do much.

The heroes proceed to board Ren's flagship with the help of a First Order officer's badge, and shoot their way through as they free Chewie. Rey and Ren have another linked vision where her parents are revealed to have attempted to hide her from her grandfather Palpatine, who wanted to merge the souls of himself and '''ALL''' other preceding Sith (presumably not Revan, since his redemption is canon) while he discovers they are on his ship and orders it put on lockdown. Rey is confronted in the hangar by Ren, who offers her to join him again. She refuses and the Falcon appears, the engines blowing away the Stormtroopers while Rey jumps aboard. The crew head to Endor after finding out from Sheev's servant's old droid that it was where he was going to go next (this is the only thing the droid does other than serve as a "pet the dog moment" for the cast a few times) where the Death Star wreckage of the disk and throne room landed, encountering a division of former child-soldier Stormtroopers like Finn who went AWOL. The dagger has a slide-out metal prong from the handle which perfectly lines up with the corridor leading to Sheev's throne room. The team work on repairing the Falcon while Rey presses on ahead, alone, to the Death Star wreckage. Once in the throne room a hidden door opens, revealing a sanctum full of crystal mirrors that are the same as the ones she saw in her vision in Force Awakens (the scene where she snaps her fingers and all the mirrored ones do as well). There she finds the Sith McGuffin and gets a "The Cave" vision of herself as a Sith with a red double-bladed lightsaber which she fights. Kylo is waiting for her in the throne room, and crushes the Sith McGuffin in his hand before informing her they are linked in the Force as one soul inhabiting two bodies and offering her again to be the Vader to her Palpatine which she again refuses. The two fight while Finn and one of the Stormtroopers try to rescue her. They fight their way onto the remnants of the Death Star hangar, reminiscent of Anakin and Obi-wan in Revenge Of The Sith with water instead of lava, before Ren freezes as he senses his mother start to die. This pause gives Rey time to grab his lightsaber and stab him before she freezes sensing Leia actually pass away. Rey uses the Force to heal him, then steals his TIE Fighter while Poe and Finn return to the Resistance base. Rey initially attempts to hide on Luke's monastery to let Palpatine's bloodline die with her, but after lighting Kylo's TIE on fire (so she's destroyed 2 of his personal TIE at this point) Luke appears as a Force ghost to tell her <strike>Rian Johnson</strike> he was wrong, and was motivated by fear when he tried to hide. He reveals that all the Jedi who came before are rooting for her, and tells her where Leia's lightsaber is hidden. He reveals she stopped her training because in a vision she saw that her son would be destroyed by the Dark Side, and a Light Side counterpart would take up her blade instead. Meanwhile, Kylo is visited by the memory of Han. The two reenact the scene from Force Awakens, only this time Kylo throws his lightsaber into the sea and renounces the name Kylo Ren to become simply Ben again. Meanwhile the First Order blow up Poe's home planet where the droid technician and Poe's old crew were, although they had managed to get offworld by that point. Also, R2-D2 restores C-3PO's memory wipe by finding a backup which contains everything from before the mission.

Luke lifts his X-Wing from the waves and Rey scavenges the Sith McGuffin from the flaming wreck of Kylo's ship. As she proceeds to the Sith planet she sends out a beacon to track her progress, giving the entire galaxy a map to the Sith fleet. Poe, now leader of the Resistance, sends Lando with the Falcon and Nien Nunb to gather any forces they can, all the ones who refused to aid them in The Last Jedi, while the rest of the Resistance gears up to attack Sheev's fleet before they can leave the storm cloud. The initial plan is to destroy the navigation device which orients them to the rest of the galaxy without which the fleet cannot leave, until the commander of the flagship (a former Imperial officer) realizes what they are doing and orders it to be shut down so his own ship could serve as the navigation for the rest. Rey confronts Sheev in a coliseum/throne room full of the Cultist parents of the personnel of the fleet (VD) and is informed of his plan to have her kill him so all the Sith could merge with her and rule as basically the God Emperor of Star Wars. She raises her lightsaber before using the strange wormhole Force connection thing they have to pass it to Ben, who had gotten there with a salvaged TIE from the Death Star wreckage and was being beaten by his former servants, the Knights Of Ren. Armed with Luke's old lightsaber he kills them and proceeds to the throne room. Ben arrives and the two attempt to fight him. He simply Force Pushes them back and forces them to kneel before draining a portion of their souls, the "two bodies one soul" thing apparently being a massive source of Force power he can heal himself with to rule in his own rejuvenated body again (but with Darth Maul eyes) rather than Rey's. Meanwhile, the ex-Stormtroopers and Resistance ground personnel lead by Finn land on the flagship Star Destroyer (its still in the atmosphere of the Sith planet, thus gravity and breathable air applies) and due to bringing goat-horse things from Endor are not affected by onboard EMP that would otherwise short out speeders and tanks (which is a thing from past canon, mostly comics and novels, which they use to explain why such a thing doesn't happen more often). Meanwhile, Lando appears with a fucking enormous fleet (remember the backstory that the New Republic didn't have a fleet, instead paying for every planet to have a militia of their own which would unite when there was a big enough threat? Well, JJ finally remembered because all those fucks show up alongside a neat little game of "spot that ship from the series you know" in a few shots). They begin attacking the superweapons underneath the Star Destroyers directly, causing chain reactions that blow the entire ship.

Ben is Force-pushed by Sheev into a pit as revenge for how Vader did the same thing to him before taunting the dying Rey and unleashing a MASSIVE Force Lightning storm which shorts out the fleet. While this is going on the spirits of all the dead Jedi (like pretty much anyone they could find to record a line from any of the past movies or shows, including Ahsoka; which is pretty lame since it means she was killed off-screen, with natural causes being unlikely since Ahsoka wouldn't have been 80 yet, and even that's below the average Togruta life expectancy, though this may not necessarily be the case according to Filoni) who inhabit her body the same way that Palpatine is currently full of all the Sith. Rey manages to stand and deflects his Force Lightning with Leia's lightsaber, which isn't enough until Ben manages to climb out of the pit and throw her Luke's lightsaber; with the two together she's able to walk close enough to Sheev for his Force Lightning to burn him, and despite this being the third fucking time this has happened he does not turn off the lightning and instead Raiders Of The Lost Ark's himself into a skeleton before blowing up and destroying not only himself but the spirits of all the past Sith. Despite Palpatine's plan being to possess Rey when she kills him, for some reason he doesn't do so. The Jedi spirits leave Rey and she dies, with the barely lingering on Ben healing her. They share a kiss (reminder that since Sheev created Anakin, they're basically cousins, and their relationship is so adversarial it makes Edward and Bella's from Twilight look healthy, something the novelization tries to claim is "purely platonic") before Ben dies. His body vanishes, as does Leia's. The Resistance/Militia fleet destroy all the Star Destroyers after Finn's ground crew hijacks one of the cannons of the flagship to shoot at the ship bridge, killing the last of the old Empire and First Order leadership.

The heroes return to the Resistance planet where they celebrate, scenes showing the rest of the galaxy shooting the last of the First Order Star Destroyers play, Chewie is given Han's old medal from A New Hope, and the ex-Stormtrooper leader is hinted to be Lando's daughter or grandaughter implying a spinoff with the two. After the celebrations Rey returns to Luke's old home on Tatooine where she buries Anakin and Leia's lightsabers, revealing she built her own from her Force vision only with yellow blades instead of red ones. An old woman who was a neighbor of Owen and Beru comments nobody had been to that place in years and asks Rey's name. Seeing the Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia, she tells the woman her name is Rey Skywalker. The End.

Because god knows this fandom can no longer agree on fucking anything anymore, there was immediately fan wars going on everywhere Star Wars fans are found. Fans accused haters of review bombing, those who hated the movie claimed the critic score (which, if you recall, is mostly people who liked The Last Jedi and hate this movie for doing a U-turn on it) vindicates them. The fan fighting probably won't ever end, since now we apparently have to reevaluate if A New Hope and the Kenner Star Wars toys were ever good in the first place because some contrarians now claim the prequels are the pinnacle of Star Wars. Whatever the case, Disney CEO Bog Iger resigned in the middle of the work week in late February 2020, indicating that the backlash and fan alienation had a deeper impact than anticipated.
</div>
</div>

==Expanded Universe==

It can be said what makes a franchise into a long term lasting thing is when a wealth of extra story and background is created that expands on the original story far beyond what there was. It could be argued Star Wars leads the race in this, as the sheer amount of extra novels, graphic novels and games based on Star Wars can and does overwhelm the ordinary fan.

===The original EU/Star Wars "Legends"===

[[Image: Choices_of_One_PB_art.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Before Cara, before Rey, before Ashoka, Nomi Sunrider or Padme... there was Mara Jade]]
The background has expanded into the distant past before the founding of the current Jedi and Sith orders and into the (not-quite-so) far future looking at the descendants of Luke Skywalker and other popular characters. Uniquely, especially considering [[Warhammer 40K|other]] [[Star Trek|franchises']] track records, the Star Wars Expanded Universe is <strike>remarkably</strike> <strike>sorta</strike> sometimes internally consistent, both with other sources within the universe and with the films themselves, at least in comparison to other comparable settings. Of course, it's got plenty of its own [[C. S. Goto|problem children]] that slipped through, and the [[skub]] mine of it all isn't much shallower than that of 40K. Good portions of it do hold up well, largely due to the efforts of Lucas' company's continuity department leaning on everyone to hold it together. One thing that greatly helps is continuity books and articles aren't afraid to make small retcons to make even the most obscure and shitty sources (like that terrible PS1 fighting game) seem like part of an organized plot. Particularly well-loved parts include characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn (a rare alien officer in the Empire and popular enough that Disney brought him back to the canon from the EU) and Mara Jade (a Force-using former agent of Emperor Palpatine who later turned good, became a Jedi Master, married Luke and had a son with him) - interestingly both were created by the same author [[Timothy Zahn]].

Upon their acquisition, Disney said "fuck it" and threw out everything but the films and the Clone Wars cartoons. Some popular old stuff got mentions or appearances (and Thrawn got to be a major character), but the overall quality is even lower than the old EU. What was set up as a major book contains phrases like "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air" and random virtue signalling. As though to top the previous, Disney literally published a book with an entire chapter about mass wedding farts (Yes. Really.). The only good stuff is from established EU authors writing stuff far away from era of the Disney films.

The [[rage]] over the EU's scrapping was major among many fans of it, but for all Disney's shortcomings, they were in a tight spot. Towards the end all that continuity and consistency got thrown out the airlock for increasingly dumb and disjointed narratives and garbled plot threads to the point that the Star Wars logo was just about as much a sign of quality as the Nintendo approval stamp on shitty SNES games.

Another problem was that Disney is mostly family-firendly, and some of the Star Wars EU could get really dark. As in Warhammer 40k levels of grimdark. Examples of this are the invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong - forcenull space-Druchii (no no, not Comorrites though they have the pain and body modification fetishes for it, space-'''Druchii''', riding enslaved tyranid bioships) from another galaxy, Mnggal-Mnggal - mindraping gelatin lost on its way to Star Trek, and Abeloth - an ancient (she predates the Jedi and the Sith) yandere Force entity more like something from the Cthulhu Mythos and is so dangerous the Jedi and the Sith '''joined forces''' to fight her. It's difficult to envision how Disney could have kept the EU when even before all that it was struggling to find a market beyond the most [[neckbeards|dedicated fans]].

===The Books===

'''The Good EU'''
[[Image: Heir-to-the-empire-cover.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Heir to the Empire (1991): The book that started it all]]
* '''The Thrawn Trilogy''': The origination point for the EU, and focuses on the conflict with the Imperial remnants left over after RotJ. Named for the main villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, who went on to become one of Star Wars most well-loved characters. Basically the story "The Force Awakens" wishes it was. Also introduced Mara Jade, a sexy redhead that's everything Disney wishes Rey was and more.
* '''The Han Solo Adventures''': Star's End was the second spinoff book written and the first good one. Han and Chewie are trying to get some work done on the Falcon and wind up having to bust out some political prisoners to pay for it. Would have made for a better film than ''Solo'' did.
* '''Shadows of the Empire''': Shadows is set between ESB and RotJ and fills in the details of getting the Death Star II's plans, finding out where Han was taken, Luke building his own saber, etc by the introduction of another bounty hunter by the name of Dash Rendar. The Special Edition rerelease of ''A New Hope'' added the Outrider to the background of one scene. Most notable for the fact that it was also adapted into a video game for the N64 and PC.
*'''The Darth Bane Trilogy''': The origin of the Rule of Two for the Sith, along with a compelling protagonist and his apprentice.
* '''Revenge of the Sith''': The novelization is actually considered a serious improvement over the movie itself.

'''The Bad EU'''
* '''Jedi Academy Trilogy''': Luke sets up his academy on Yavin IV and tries to teach [[Rage|Kyp Durron]]. Imperial remnant superweapons hit ludicrous territory with the sun crusher. This was the beginning of Kevin J Anderson hammering out a couple dozen Star Wars books over about four years.
* '''Young Jedi Knights Series''': Set between Jedi Academy and New Jedi Order, mostly follows Han & Leia's kids.
* '''I, Jedi''': A retelling of the Jedi Academy Trilogy (see above) with more of Corran Horn from the first set of X-Wing books. Less derp in general but significantly more [[Mary Sue]]age of Horn.
* '''Legacy of the Force''': The survivors of the Yuuzhan Vong War are trying to rebuild the galaxy, but Jacen Solo turns Sith and becomes the main villain. The book series is infamous for nearly killing the Star Wars EU, threatening the franchise and issues between various writers years before Disney went down the same road (Jacen Solo was also a major influence for Kylo Ren). The biggest complaints were Jacen killing Mara, the heroes becoming idiots whenever they could've stopped the villains, poor dialogue, long-winded writing and the story being overstuffed with allusions to post 9/11 United States.

'''The [[Skub]] EU'''
* '''New Jedi Order''': The longest-running (19 books long) and most divisive story of the EU. Luke's married to Mara and they're rebuilding the Jedi Order while Han and Leia are trying to reconcile the New Republic and Imperial Remnants. Han and Leia are also raising three kids and Mara's got a terminal illness. Then extragalactic aliens called Yuuzhan Vong - [[Imperium of Man|religious fanatics]] with [[Tyranids|organic technology]], a thing for [[Dark Eldar|pain and body modification]] along with [[Culexus|partial immunity to The Force]] - start a war to conquer the Star Wars Galaxy. Chewie dies Majora's Mask style, Mara's illness is cured and she gives birth to Ben Skywalker, the Vong take over Coruscant, lots is learned about the Force and the bodycount goes so high it could give Warhammer 40k a run for its money (365 TRILLION; only the War in Heaven or the Fall of the Eldar had anywhere near that many deaths in one event). A real love-it-or-hate-it series, some parts were good, some were bad and some were weird.
* '''Dark Empire''': Palpatine's back to save a dying franchise decades before Disney tried it. Starts off good, falls apart fast. Known for its love-it-or-hate-it artstyle and dialogue.
* '''Courtship of Princess Leia''': Deals with another Imperial remnant. This one has force witches. It's also ''really'' silly. If you like that, raise this higher. If not, it might even drop lower.
* '''Fate of the Jedi''': People are growing dissatisfied with the Jedi Order following LotF. Luke, Ben and the remaining Jedi are trying to fix things just as a Sith Tribe emerges from hiding. Things take a turn for cosmic horror when a yandere, Force-using eldritch abomination who could doom the galaxy escapes her prison. The Sith apprentice Vestara rises through the ranks and finds herself in a Catwoman/Batman situation with Ben Skywalker. While being an OoM better than the preceding trilogy, FotJ has a very divided opinion among SW fans.

=== Disney Canon ===
[[Image:Star_Wars_Disney_Princesses.jpg|right|400px|thumb|Love it or hate it, they are now official ''Disney Princesses''.]]
It's still [[skub|debatable]] whether or not the new Canon holds up to the old EU, or learns to fix the problems that plagued it. We probably won't see what comes of it for decades to come. Disney Canon, as of 2020, seems to largely be built around the nine main movies (of course), with shows like Rebels and Clone Wars alongside anthology movies fleshing out stories that had been told in comics and books back before the Disney buy-up, but can now be seen on film.

A curious thing that has begun happening: Certain elements of the old EU is slipping into the Disney Canon. Plotlines like the Emperor returning, the Death Star plans heist and Han's path to become the smuggler we know him as all have bits and pieces from EU canon in them. In some cases, whole characters are ported in; the best example is Admiral Thrawn, who appears in Rebels. Other times, popular characters has their traits or stories ported into new ones (Finn and Cassian are both expies of Kyle Katarn, for example). This gives some credence to the argument that Lucasfilms and Disney wanted to wipe the slate with all the stories that had been told in the EU, so they could create their own, fully realized canon Star Wars setting that one could make movies - ''many'' movies - from. Considering the amount of shitty fan-fiction-esque stories the EU had, this may be for the best, but of course, storylines that people have loved for ages are also thrown out with the bathwater.

Now. Detractors of Disney-era Star Wars often talk loads about how the sequel trilogy invalidates the original trilogy, or how Disney screwed over Luke or ignored cool characters like Kyle Katarn. These are semi-valid arguments of course, but they ignore some of the biggest issues with the EU originally - it wasn't sponsored by George Lucas and Lucasfilms. They were sponsored fan-fiction in a sense, semi-canon from the outset and not really something that could be considered a part of the Star Wars setting, though George Lucas did work with the writers to a point, such as with the New Jedi Order book series (he gave them permission to kill off Chewbacca in the story). In fact, George never really considered them real stories; more like a parallel universe of his own Star Wars works. He accepted it because they bring in the big bucks when people would beg to have the official Star Wars logo on anything they produced.

That, and the sequel trilogy, underwhelming as it may be, was George's idea in broad strokes. The series was always going to have a sequel trilogy, and while the outcome isn't exactly what he (or we) wanted, quite a lot of it is. Luke being an exile on a far-away planet, who has to be roused to fight by a new, female Jedi? George's idea, not Disney's. A son of Han and Leia struggling with the Dark Side? Also George's idea (though Disney lifted a lot form the original version - Jacen Solo - for Kylo Ren). If anything, much of the direction comes from Lucasfilms; Disney just wants the movie to sell well. It's similar with Marvel nowadays.

So for better or worse, the Disney Canon is the first time the wider setting of Star Wars beyond the series and movies have become irrevocably canon, rather than "kinda-sorta-canon". Much of what we've gotten that is new is based roughly on George's own work as well. Remember this when discussing EU vs Disney in Star Wars - Either setting is cool for their own reasons, but the Mouse got little to do with it - and if you don't like it, bring it up with big man Lucas. Whatever the case, with Bob Iger's resignation as CEO from Disney (likely not on his terms, as he stated multiple times he would retire in 2021), things are changing (for better or worse).

==Star Wars:The Television Shows==
===Star Wars:The Clone Wars===
Technically, there are two series called similar titles. The first was 2004's ''Star Wars: Clone Wars'', an animated miniseries made by Genndy Tartakovsky (He of Dexter's Lab and [[Samurai Jack]] fame) chronicling, among other things, the titular Clone Wars and introducing a much more sinister General Grievous to the world.

But then we have ''The Clone Wars'', a CGI animated series (and tie-in movie) that we'll be talking about more and contributed more to the EU. One of the most universally known and loved parts of Star Wars, most fans worth their action figures and limited edition movie sets have watched the show and have an opinion on it one way or another. Some of the most notable characteristics are:

* The Clone Troopers are fleshed out,and we see that they are manly motherfuckers who make Guardsmen's balls of steel look like the cardboard their armor is made out of (seriously, in the movie, they literally charge straight into close combat with ''giant armored walkers with large guns'' and jump off roofs to get top of them to shoot them point blank, and punch droids in the face)
* Anakin Skywalker is actually a good, fleshed out character, with a good voice actor and shows his descent to child-murdering Force-choking asshat wasn't just him going 'welp, guess I'll fall to the Dark Side.' There was a fair amount of bad-cop “it was him or me” murder to get there.
* Introduces Ashoka Tano, a major character who's a female Togruta Jedi that's well-written, non-OP, non-Mary Sue and doesn't invalidate characters from the movies. Starts off a bit annoying in the Clone Wars movie, but manages to do something truly special: she ''learns''. Over the course of Clone Wars and Rebels, Ashoka probably has the most character development out of any other Star Wars character.
* Obi-Wan being a sexy one-liner spouting sarcastic badass.
* And many others.

However, there were some pretty derp moments too, such as

* Babysitting episode/movie.
* D-squad, where a bunch of droids become heroes of the Republic.
* Mandalore and how it's fluff was basically screwed 180 degrees, and then some.
* Droids were comic relief of the first and second seasons. It was annoying.

All in all, it was an good show that took some time to find it's feet.

After many years, a seventh season was been announced in an attempt to take away from ''The Last Jedi'' being shit and add ''something'' to the empty Disney Plus lineup. At least some of the episodes will be ones that were in production when the show ended. It promptly disappeared after that announcement for a couple years till it was announced it's coming out in 2019.

===Star Wars: Rebels===
[[Image:WomanYellingAtLothcat.jpeg|right|400px|thumb|''Stop fooling our plan, you rebel scum!'']]
Now that Disney owns Star Wars they can't go a season without something new to run on Disney XD, so after ''The Clone Wars'' ended they needed a series to milk episodes out of and launched ''Rebels''. ''Rebels'' is set a few years before ''A New Hope'' and covers the early formation of the rebellion from the perspective of one cell focused on the planet Lothal. If you liked ''Rogue One'' but thought it should be about 25 hours long and done in cartoony CGI then this is the show for you.

So what did we see in ''Rebels''?

* Grand Admiral Thrawn makes his debut in Disney Star Wars, along with the TIE Defender project. The character doesn’t lose much in the translation, and later on is arguably treated better than the source.
* The bearded old guy in the Endor strike team in RotJ turns out to be Captain Rex. Fan theory at first, later confirmed.
* You CAN [[combi-weapon]] a lightsaber and a blaster, and it's OP as shit
* Force wolves (no, not [[Rune Priest|those force wolves]])
* [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones-style]] Mandos (Krownest is pretty much Space-Winterfell).
* Imperial Inquisitors. Sure they don’t last long, but they were intimidating while they were, and it planted the seed that was used elsewhere.
* Some good appearances by Darth Vader.

So about the wolves... ''Rebels'' turns the force mysticism up past 11. Forget just being precog space monks with laser swords; as far as ''Rebels'' is concerned the Jedi are [[craftworld]] [[eldar]] without the racism. Rebels picks up the torch of the Clone Wars “Force Gods” and mixes in some of the straight-up fantasy shit from the Lucas era novels and the KOTOR/Old Republic Jedi philosophy schools and heresies beyond just “Light good, Dark bad”.

However, there were levels of derp that we got to see in this show, such as the following:

* Since this is a Disney cartoon, the bad guys can't have even a temporary victory. This changes Thrawn and the other Imperials from an imposing force to [[Abbadon|cartoon villains]], although Rebels villains manage to stay intimidating more than Grievous did in Clone Wars.
* Battles slower paced than a Death Guard movement phase. Enjoy characters having full conversations in cover-based shooting when everyone has Stormtrooper aim.
* Lightsabers the shape of toothpicks.
* [[Bullshit|Helicopter lightsabers]]
* Complete bipolarity in tone. This can create some great moments, but invariably ruins the mood episode by episode, or between the A and B plots.
* Iron Squadron. Just...fucking [[Rage|Iron Squadron]]
* Star Destroyers look terrible, mostly due to their bridge towers being way taller than they should be.

All in all, it depends on your preference.

Since the show does have a fair amount of dedicated fans, <strike>likely</strike> possibly more than the sequel trilogy itself, Disney has made a habit of planting Easter Egg references to Rebels in basically everything moving forward, usually in the form of an appearance by the iconic ship The Ghost or the friendly-ish space pirate character Hondo Ohnaka.

===Star Wars: Resistance===
Annnd they had to go and change things again. With ''Rebels'' coming to a close and a burning need to keep Star Wars on their lineup, Disney had a choice: find a new plot and setting for a formula and art style that had produced two successful multi-season shows, or throw it all out and start from scratch. Remember, this is Disney we're talking about, the company that once [[Fail|paid a quarter billion dollars to fire the producer who made ''The Little Mermaid'', ''Beauty and the Beast'', ''Aladdin'', and ''The Lion King'']] only for him to go and [[profit|found Dreamworks]] out of spite.

Like its predecessor, ''Star Wars: Resistance'' sets itself up as a prequel to a trilogy, in this case following the early days of the Resistance in its fight against the First Order. Where it differs from ''Rebels'' is that ''Resistance'' is playing the warm up act for a trilogy that nobody likes. On top of which, the creators abandoned the 3D style that ''Rebels'' inherited from ''The Clone Wars'', and replaced it with a cel style that's half ''Treasure Planet'', half ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' and all ''RWBY''.

To be blunt, this show is 100% pure crystal derp. Our star is Kazuda Xiono, a manic depressive who literally fanboy-ed his way into being a spy under the cover story of being a mechanic, two jobs he is not qualified for. This kid is the Invader Zim of Star Wars. Filling out the cast we have the original only cockney girl in space, an autistic alien, their widower boss who is definitely gonna die, D.Va and her ex-imperial officer dad, and BB-8. Poe Dameron shows up regularly so he can be Ace Fucking Rimmer without having to compete against Rey for the TOP SUE trophy. Reception was so terrible it was confirmed canceled at 2 seasons before the second season even started.

Part of the problem with ''Resistance'' is that the First Order has a doomfort that can frag planets across the galaxy, yet has to resort to hiring pirates to encourage settlements into accepting the First Order's protection racket. Palpy's empire was a model of efficient, heavy handed governance; its evil intent veiled from the masses who mostly resent it for bringing order. The First Order on the other hand is basically just Cobra Command, a font of evil hamstrung by flailing incompetence. As mentioned earlier, the backstory for the Resistance and First Order is basically that the First Order are a mobile pirate fleet with one untested secret base weapon lead by old farts of dubious actual leadership abilities from the Empire and their fanatical children with grunts made up of brainwashed child soldiers kidnapped from pioneer settlements while the Resistance is just a tiny militia that is so poorly funded they don’t even qualify as a single fleet since their few outdated capital ships are crewed by outdated droids and they don’t even have enough fighters to protect them, but rather than depict the potentially interesting dynamic this suggests the series just tries to be Rebels again, the same path the movies took even though at this point both factions are even smaller than they were in the movies.

===Star Wars: The Mandalorian===

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti western's so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up. Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well know spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Adeptus_Arbites|Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way" their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times, (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing). The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand awesome.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Jedi''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

==Wookieepedia==
One of the largest fan wikis ever created, this bad boy is extensively cited, has enormous variety, and has page upon page of talk. It was if Lexicanum, the 40k fan wiki, and our own glorious site were fused into a terrible beast.

==Impact on 1d4chan and associated games etc==

Star Wars has had subtle and clear impacts on a number of other franchises and genres and it can be ''incredibly'' hard to gauge the extent of it all. Certainly it didn't create the concepts of sci-fi, space battles, sweeping storylines, and a blending of mystical and scientific ideas, but it certainly popularized them during the years of the original trilogy and influenced many people that would go on to have interests in sci-fi, fantasy and epic adventure today.

Hell, look me in the eye and tell me that the lightsaber didn't give us the [[power weapon]]. But then again, magic weapons.
==Sabacc and Pazaak==
A rather unusual entry here but it's well in line, Sabacc is an actual tabletop card game from the Star Wars universe which is basically a hybrid of Poker and Blackjack. A Sabacc Deck has 76 cards, most of which in four suits of 16 cards numbered one to 16, plus sixteen wildcards in two sets with values that were either negative or (in the case of the Idiot) Zero. The goal of the game is to have a set of three cards who's total as close as possible to, but not over, 23 or -23. If you got 23/-23 (Pure Sabacc) which could only be beaten by an Idiot's Array (One Idiot, a two and a three, thus 23). The stakes are raised every cycle until the cards go down or one player is left standing who gets the pot.

The notable thing about Sabacc that sets it apart from real world card games is that the Cards can change value every turn. A Pure Sabacc can easily become an instant lose 25 and an absolutely lousy hand can become an Idiot's Array. They can be stabilized to fix their value, but everyone knows when you do so. This feature has so far prevented Sabacc from being released in tabletop form as of yet. ''(Of course, there are ways to deal with this, such as simply re-dealing unfixed cards, but never let it be said that nerds will choose practicality over purity.)''

In universe, Han Solo won the Millenium Falcon off Lando in a game of Sabacc.

Pazaak is an older game from an in-universe perspective, similar to Blackjack but its player versus player rather than player versus dealer and also has some aspects of a collectible card game. Goal of the game is to raise cards from the main deck until their total value is 20 or they can also choose to stand if they get close but don't want to risk it. Best out of five wins.

CCG-aspect of Pazaak comes from the sidedeck: both players collect ten cards for their side deck and then randomly take four cards from their side deck to their hand in the beginning of the game. Hand cards are used to either lower or raise the total value: so if the player raises cards from the main deck to the total value of 25, they can prevent dropping out if they have a -5 card or higher in their hand.
Cards which only either raise or lower the value are the most common of the side cards.
More rarer are cards which can be used to both raise and lower the value.
Then there are flip cards, which change certain main deck cards on the table to negative ones. So if the player plays a 2&4 flip card, all 2:s and 4:s on the table become -2:s and -4:s. Flip cards exist in 2&4:s and 3&6:s.
Then there is the double card, which doubles the value of the last played card. So if the player raises a 5 from the main deck, playing the double card would turn it into a 10.
Finally, the rarest side deck card is the tiebreaker, which grants the player a win if the game would otherwise end in a tie.

==Tabletop games for Star Wars==

=== Role-playing Games ===

[[West End Games]] made a Star Wars [[role-playing game]] called [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] AKA '''Star Wars D6'''. Like many West End products, it's a good game with the great misfortune of being published by West End games.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] picked up the license later and made two distinct RPGs based on their [[d20 System]], called [[Star Wars D20]] (imaginatively). Could be fun, but generally broken as hell, much like [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|its parent game]]. It was then utterly revised that into what they called the '''Saga Edition''', which is relatively balanced and pretty good.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars Roleplaying Game|a whole line of Star Wars-themed RPGs]], each one focusing on a specific style of play. You want to play a bunch of scruffy space outlaws (Edge of the Empire), members of the nascent Rebellion (Age of Rebellion), or exiled Jedi Knights (Force and Dedtiny), then they got you covered. Unlike their [[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]] games, which are all ''juuuuust'' different enough from one another to completely buttfuck any attempts at blending, all three gamelines use identical mechanics and are fully cross-compatible. Uses symbol-counting [[dice pool]]s with ludicrously overpriced custom dice.
Like the other RPGs they decided with the retardedly similar name, and thus this one is sometimes called '''Star Wars FFG''' to avoid confusion.

FFG have kept milking the franchise and in summer 2017, decided to [[Necromancer | reanimate]] the [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] with a "30th Year Anniversary Edition" print of the original game. It '''''finally''''' shipped in July 2018 after spending a year in limbo.

=== Card Games ===

The big [[card game]] set in the Star Wars universe is the [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]. It's no longer produced by Decipher, but there is still a sufficiently large player community to organize annual tournaments, rule on cards, and so on. SWCCG was radically different from the norm of card games, being divided into light and dark side cards with different backings, with light and dark always playing against each other. For tournament play a player would need both a light and dark deck.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] made the [[Star Wars Trading Card Game]].

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars: The Card Game]].

Obviously, nobody is capable of creating a Star Wars card game with an interesting name.

Aside from the real, physical, games there was also ''Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game''. It was a real, functioning, card game within the MMO that used all virtual cards. Unfortunately no server emulators have implemented it yet.

=== Miniature Games ===
[[Wizards of the Coast]] did a tabletop battles game imaginatively called Star Wars: Miniatures, based on an extremely dumbed down version of the D&D ruleset. The figures were meant to tie in with the Saga edition RPG, it wasn't terrible on its own, just impossible to collect for competitive play since figures came in random booster packs so you never know what you were getting for what faction. Who could possibly stand for that?

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is producing the [[X-Wing]] miniatures game based on individual starfighter combat (because, let's be honest, that's what ''Star'' Wars is all about). They have also released [[Star Wars: Armada]] which is a larger scale "fleet" combat simulator, using capital ships and squadrons of starfighters.

'''Star Wars: Imperial Assault'''

The latest [[Fantasy Flight Games]] addition to its Star Wars related games is a mix between a miniature board game and a skirmish wargame. It has two play modes:

One for campaign play where 1-4 players control a team of Rebel heroes and another player has the role of the DM, who controls the Imperial forces. The campaign, as the name suggests, focuses on character personalization, xp gain and the like, which you can find in any light RPG-esque (board)game. The main goal is to get a few friends together and casually play through the missions. Think of it as a Star Wars version of the original [[Hero Quest]].

The other play mode is skirmish play, where two players each get to assemble a team of miniatures plus a command deck (cards that have specific effects when played) and play against each other in an open-play scenario. The play area is still very limited to a few game tiles (as in a campaign mission) but players are free to bring whatever they want (with a few limitations of course). The skirmish part of Imperial assault is as close as you can get to an actual Star Wars skirmish wargame, but it is a missed opportunity from Fantasy Flight to create a true skirmish wargame (ala [[Infinity (wargame)|Infinity]]), not based on tiles and so confined spaces. Who knows what they have plans for though...

'''Star Wars Legion'''

And Fantasy Flight have now given us a fully fledged wargame, complete with AT-ST in the first wave. (They're 32mm scale, which means [[Games Workshop|no reusing your Imperial Assault miniatures]].) Legion has an integrated turn system, and the usual FF custom dice and forest worth of dead trees in cards and tokens that will be familiar to X-Wing and Armada players. The miniatures are PVC, reasonably detailed, easy to assemble pieces. A standard battle is 800 points, which could be anywhere from half a dozen to 16 units on the field, with an average army fielding 8-12 units comprising 30-ish models.

=== Board Games ===

The most famous and arguably best one is [[Star Wars: Rebellion]], an asymmetric two-player game that plays through the Original Trilogy in a wargame/worker placement-esque game. The Empire player must expand their already huge military base over the galaxy to build more ships and huge superweapons while searching for the Rebel Base, while the Rebels do their best to bite them in their heel, obscuring their movements and annoying the Empire until they have enough support to overthrow the Empire. As a [[Fantasy Flight Games|FFG]] boardgame, it's filled with a ludicrous amount of bits and pieces (including sweet models of Star Destroyers, Death Stars and Calamari Cruisers), as well as the trademark filled-with-small-exceptions ruleset. It's pretty sweet and still considered one of the best board games of its kind.

=== Card Miniature Games ===

In the late 00's, WizKids produced a short lived construct-able miniatures Star Wars game based on their styrene card system for Pirates of the Spanish Main. Although the game sold well, when NECA bought WizKids from Topps the rights did not transfer and it went out of print.

==Video Games for Star Wars==

To put it bluntly, every game which could possibly have ''Star Wars'' slapped onto it, exists. Flight simulators. Racers. Rail shooters. Doom clones. MMOs. Age of Empires reskins. Hell, there's even a Kinect variety game. Here's a few standouts...

* '''Knights of the Old Republic''': A pair of single player RPGs depicting a Sith war several thousand years before ''A New Hope''. KotOR is widely regarded as the best Star Wars video game ever, and was the framework for BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' series. Of all the Legends stuff, KotOR appears to still be in good standing with Disney since they continue to borrow from it. The sequel by Obsidian was the original skubtastic take on the franchise TLJ wanted to be but failed miserably. Got an MMO simply called "Old Republic" (since you can play as things other than Jedi and Sith) that is the sequel, which had a very rough start but stabilized enough to still survive to this day somehow). Possibly still canon in the Disney continuity since a lot of things get borrowed or referenced from it. Also the only thing in the EU to still receive new content.

* '''Jedi Knight:''' A series that started of as an early FPS named Dark Forces (so early that it was the time when FPS games were still known as [[Doom]]-clones) but Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had the protagonist become a Jedi. The Dark Forces name was dropped in favor of Jedi Knight after this. The series combines surprisingly deep lightsaber combat with standard shooting, though the levels can get very mazy at times. Introduced Kyle Katarn, one of the most popular characters from EU. Unfortunately, there has not been a new game since 2003's ''Jedi Academy'' and likely will never be thanks to Disney.

* '''Republic Commando''': An FPS that has the player command a squad of commandos. Its a great shooter but unfortunately, it never received a sequel and to make things worse, ended on a cliffhanger. The second act of the game, set entirely on a drifting Acclamator-class assault ship is particularly memorable and highly atmospheric. If one can look past outdated graphics, its worth trying out for anyone who wants a good FPS experience.

* '''Empire at War''': Made by the original developers of [[Command and Conquer]], it is the most notable strategy game to have come out of Star Wars. Notable for featuring three different modes of play: ground battles, space battles and galactic conquest map. Though ground battles are a bit meh, the space battles are great and the galactic conquest is certainly more interesting than only playing random skirmish matches. Even though its over 10 years old, it has a very active modding community. Republic at War, which changes the games Galactic Civil War setting to Clone Wars and Thrawns Revenge, set much further into the Galactic Civil War than portrayed in the films, are particularly great. There is also a remake mod in the works, aiming to bring the game up to modern standards in terms of visuals, sound and UI and the results do look good. Unfortunately, no great 40k mod.

* '''Star Wars Galaxies''': An early MMO, launched after ''Everquest'' but before ''WoW''. Galaxies is noteworthy for making force powers a prestige achievement requiring enormous in-game effort to unlock. The first expansion pack added a subgame that's a pretty solid flight game in its own right and the game eventually added an original, fully playable, trading card game that sadly has not yet been implemented in any simulator. Then ''World of Warcraft'' hit, Sony panicked and made Jedi a starting class and replaced the skill system with massive level grind, and offered refunds to the raging army of neckbeards. Subscription numbers tanked and never recovered. It would effectively be replaced by ''The Old Republic'', an MMO using the acclaimed KotOR setting. Like most "dead" MMOs that people loved it still lives on through illegal private servers (don't worry, the guys providing it would get busted, not people playing on it).

* '''X-Wing (and TIE Fighter)''': A series of ''Wing Commander'' clones released in the 90's. While badly dated today, they were the best fighter sims of their time, and if you can get past the highly primitive graphics some people still consider them to be the best to this day. Interestingly, TIE Fighter is largely seen as the best of the series while the N64 era Rogue Squadron and Shadows Of The Empire games are seen as being far more visually modern but largely inferior sequels. Did we mention you had to use a flight stick controller basically made for these games to really do well at these?

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2005)''': Not to be confused with the one released by EA in 2017. Solid game from the new-defunct Pandemic studio (fuck you, EA) in 2005 told from the perspective of a clone trooper that survived all the way up to the battle of Hoth, with a very down to earth boots on the ground approach. Also, just being thrown into random matches as a soldier because fun. Despite some issues, it remains the high point of the Battlefront series as well as the entire PS2 era, and on PC still has fans via an active modding community to this day. There is of course also the original one but the second one pretty much completely overshadowed it.

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)''': The one by EA. You've probably heard everything important. An absolute mess at launch due to its lootbox-heavy progression system, so much so that it started discussion even on government level about lootboxes that continues to this day. A comment by EA that became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Yet despite all this, two years later, the game is arguably one of the best Star Wars experiences one can have and an Anakin-level redemption story. Like the previous Battlefront II, it completely overshadowed its predecessor.

* '''Jedi: Fallen Order''': It took them years but finally, EA managed to deliver a Star Wars game that is great on launch without cramming it with e-transactions. Its plot focuses on an unfortunate Jedi renegade between ''Revenge'' and ''A New Hope'' who's on the hunt for a hidden database that might document all the Force-sensitive individuals in the galaxy. A game inspired primarily by games such as Dark Souls and Uncharted, its a great action-adventure game in its own right and a must-play for any Star Wars fan.

* '''Monopoly Star Wars''': Its Star Wars Monopoly. With 90's FMV that plays for every square you land on. On floppy disks. Considered fucking amazing at the time, its too strange and tabletop to not mention. Also one of the last pre-Prequel things released.

* '''Super Star Wars''': A heavily modified retelling of the original trilogy (what, you don't remember how Luke chased down the Sandcrawler and murdered all the Jawas as well as their giant rat god in order to rescue R2-D2?) that was one of the ways to say "hard as fuck" by namedropping a game prior to Dark Souls existing. Amusing for the insanity of the added content in order to make a platformer sidescrolling beat'em'up as well as how neckbeardy you have to be to punish yourself trying to beat it without cheating.

* '''Star Wars: Yoda Stories''': A game geared for kids, released the same year as Monopoly above. Players play as Luke sometime after Empire Strikes Back, although an odd alternate version where Han sometimes is free from carbonite and Boba Fett and sometimes is not. They are assigned a quest by Yoda which requires them to traverse one or more procedurally generated planets doing whatever odd crap Yoda felt was necessary, including sometimes fighting Vader. Recieved middling scores as a PC release, with some individuals HATING the game and using it as a benchmark for how much they hate something when comparing the two, although to be fair that is because distributors tried to sell it like a full game when in reality its supposed to just be freebie software that came with other purchases and was meant to go with Solitaire and space pinball as default games on a computer to waste time with. It has lapsed into obscurity thanks to even those reviewers largely being forgotten on the modern internet. Noteworthy for being played on a grid with simultaneous turn-based movement with all enemies and NPCs on a screen, feeling very much like a tabletop game at times. A simple puzzle game, where getting blocked in a corner without enough space to pass the time by an idiot NPC is more dangerous than any foe.

*'''Shadows of the Empire''': Made on the Nintendo 64 and Windows PC, you play as Dash Rendar, a scoundrel in a ship like Han Solo working for the Rebellion. Takes place during Episode V as a side story. Despite being much beloved by fans for years and years, it's sadly not aged well thanks to the rather peculiar control scheme of the N64 and the graphics not having aged like cheap cheese in the sun. Main enemy of the game is a xeno named Xisor who is just a real uppity crime boss (and apparently a prince). This game has an absolute great opening first part where you're flying in a Snowspeeder on Hoth killing Imperials left and right while trying to use the cables to crash the AT-ATs like in the movie. After that the game begins to kinda just carry on with awkward controls.

==Assorted list of Awesome From Star Wars==
* Fucking ''[[Lightsaber|Lightsabers!]]''
* The fucking [[Approved music|OST]]
* What is likely the greatest duel in cinematic history, that takes place on a [[Death World|lava planet.]]
* Deathly Stormtroopers, heroic Clonetroopers or sinister First Order troopers; whatever they're called, stormtroopers are awesome!
* Darth Vader whenever he gets a speaking line or to murder rebel scum - that is to say, all the time.
* Darth Maul in both The Phantom Menace and TCW.
* Lightsaber Rifles
* The entirety of the Umbara campaign, where <s>Imperial Guardsmen</s> Clone Troopers die in the dozens attempting to win some godforsaken planet, earning them balls of titanium that make the guard look ba- {{BLAM| '''*BLAM*''' Heresy!}}
* 97% of the Creatures.
* 98% of the Starfighter designs.
* Costumes that mix about every possible inspiration, Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese, Ancient Greece and Rome, Elizabethan, Moebius or Pulp Sci-Fi from the 60's, giving the whole series a distinctive style and gives Padme Amidala an excuse to show off with all her dresses.
* Boba and Jango Fett and the rest of the Mandalorians.
* KOTOR (both games) plot making you think this shit is actually logical and has so much philosophical background. One of the creepiest depictions of the Universe. Everything is brutal, with big vibrating knives, blood, those machines for Sith snuff movies, more blood, bastards, badass bastards and so on. Everything while somebody is talking with you about existence.
* Our saviour Lord Revan. He's like if [[Horus|fucking Horus]] just became [[Big Bad Evil Guy|fucking bad]] (but not that [[Erebus|bad]]) to fucking destroy the [[Chaos Gods|Dark Gods]] so he can solve his daddy issues.
**but he's more virile, deadly, powerful, charismatic and cool.
* Lightsabers.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi.
* The High Ground.
* TIE fighters. They have the most distinctive scream of any fighter in cinematic history that just yells "I'm evil!". Tell me I'm wrong. I'll wait.
** The fact that they managed to do that using what is essentially a shitty visual pun.
* Most of Episode 3.
* The entirety of Anakin's story, especially when you add the Clone Wars and prequels. While you're at it, watch CinemaWins' perspective on it the series.
* Admiral Ackbar the Memeable!
* Palpatine getting into some Tzeentchian-level scheming and backstabbing in order to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic.
* Grand Admiral Thrawn: So awesome that he rose to a high rank in the anthropocentric Empire despite being an alien and was one of the first (and rare few) things to be imported straight from Legends to Disney.
* Imperial Pilots get a mention, seeing as they fly literal garbage fighters against superior rebel fighters. By garbage, we mean that even the Imperium have better fighter designs than these guys. At least Imperial fighters conserve the life of the fucking pilot.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi again.
* Princess, later Senator Leia Organa; the original badass-yet-hot boss lady in space. Ends up leading two separate, successful underground freedom movements against impossible odds. Did we mention she's a Jedi in both canons?
* Han Solo, who is so badass that hot Leia falls in love. He has the smuggler's best friend, a Wookie, who is also the worst opponent you can face in a [[Chess|Dejarik match]].
* Just... Star Destroyers. When you see a huge, imposing warship from an evil Empire, this is the granddaddy they all look up to.
* Oh, did we mention the lightsabers ?

== See Also: ==
* ''[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/ Darths & Droids]'': A webcomic, made using photo-stills of the ''Star Wars'' movies to tell a story about gamers blundering through each of the six movies in sequence... though not quite exactly how you might expect. Think ''DM of the Rings'' in overall visual style, though unlike ''DM of the Rings'', ''Darths & Droids'' features several heavy twists on the actual events of the films, subplots about the players and their lives outside the game alongside the campaign, and a better overall quality of gamer.
* "[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html/ Endor Holocaust]": An excellent example of the [[skub]] Star Wars can create. Rebuttal: "[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/fanart/endortruth20040810.pdf Endor Rebuttal]"
*[[Timothy Zahn]]
*[[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]]
*[[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*[[Star Wars:Resistance]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

Star Wars

2020-03-13T22:50:13Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* Disney Canon */

{{Star Wars}}
[[File:Star-Wars-Logo (1).jpg|center|500px|]]

{{Topquote|A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....|Star Wars opening text}}
'''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D0ZQPqeJkk/ Star Wars]''' is one of, if not ''the'', most influential media franchises of modern times, let alone its effect on science-fiction and fantasy. Indeed, among [[/tg/|nerddom]], it is challenged by only a few others, like [[Star Trek]] and [[The Lord of the Rings]].

The incredibly ardent fandom is spread worldwide and has a strong presence in popular culture. Many of the characters, like Darth Vader and Yoda, are iconic even to the general public. John Williams' score for the original trilogy is probably the best-known film score of all time. The universe has spawned numerous video games, hundreds of novels, multiple TV shows, one of the largest merchandising franchises ever, and, relevant to /tg/, a whole bunch of board, card, and roleplaying games.

It is also the current leading world source of [[Skub]].

==The Basic Concept==
Star Wars was originally a series of epic science-fantasy "space operas" that roughly followed the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. They're set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," [Note: this makes the entire series a fairy tale] where a mysterious life force called (reasonably enough) the Force permeates everything. This, in turn, can be wielded by certain people, giving them pseudo-magical abilities; thank the Emperor (no, the other one) there were no Commissars in that universe. Those who use it for good become mystical, selfless warrior monks called Jedi, whereas those who use it for evil are ruthless, self-serving bastards called Sith. However, the Force must always be in balance, so any time the Sith arise to cause imbalance, the Jedi have to pull together and take them out to restore the natural order.

The so-called Original Trilogy (made up of films IV through VI, released from 1977 to 1983) followed a young man named Luke Skywalker who becomes a Jedi and re-balances the Force. Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance is fighting to end the oppressive Galactic Empire, which is secretly led by the Sith. Luke and his Rebel companions eventually defeat the evil Emperor Palpatine, but along the way they discover that his lieutenant, Darth Vader, is actually Luke's father. A financial, critical, popular and cultural H-bomb, these movies are basically the filter through which Generation X perceives the world... for better or worse.

The so-called Prequel Trilogy (made up of films I through III, released from 1999 to 2005) explained how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and how the Galactic Empire was established. This involves a lot of convoluted politicking in the Republic, which is then torn apart in the Clone Wars, where the Republic (with an army of clones led by the Jedi) fights against the Confederacy (with an army of robots led by [[Necrons|General Grievous]] and secretly controlled by the Sith). It was not as well received as the first trilogy, for reasons we'll talk about below.

There's also a so-called Sequel Trilogy (made up of film VII and presumably films VIII and IX), which started in 2015 and picked up the story some three decades after the Emperor's defeat with a new generation of heroes taking on the remains of the evil Empire, which is a group of extremist former Imperials calling themselves the First Order. However, Episode VII aka ''The Force Awakens'', was directed by J.J. Abrams, who's mostly known for the [[skub|skubtastic]] [[Star Trek]] reboot, while Episode VIII was written and directed by Ryan Johnson who was a young director known for plot twists and genre experimentation on a handful of movies and television episodes that openly said he wanted to "subvert expectations" and make half of viewers dislike his work, then got pissed when half of them disliked his work. The result managed to fracture the Star Wars fanbase over issues of dull rehashing for VII and a whole laundry list of reasons for VIII (ranging from small ones such as it being too different, to major issues like half the movie being filler), as well as those who still enjoyed them and very little common ground between the three groups.

Finally, there are the so-called Anthology movies, standalone one-shots involving characters and plotlines that aren't a part of the main "Saga" films, except they kind of are. The first, Rogue One (2016), is an immediate prequel to Episode IV that follows those Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans. The second film follows a young Han Solo and pals Chewie and Lando. A third rumored one follows Boba Fett.

There are also three separate TV series. The first one, ''Clone Wars'', was based on traditional animation, whereas the later one, '''''The''' Clone Wars'', was a weird 3D animation. They're both pretty good. There was also a terrible theatrical release that was basically just an advertisement for ''The Clone Wars'', but, since it's even worse than the Prequel Trilogy (hint: babysitting Jabba the Hutt's kid), nobody talks about it much. The third series is Disney's ''"Rebels"'' which is set between Episodes III-IV and it takes itself far less seriously than Clone Wars did, and is more of a homage to the original trilogy since not every character in the series is the owner of a lightsaber nor are they constantly talking about grown-up politics, senators and trade embargoes... pretty much the things that clogged up the plot of the prequel trilogy.

And then there's the whole Expanded Universe, which covers pretty much everything not covered by the films, like the Old Republic (set thousands of years before the prequel trilogy, when there were a hell of a lot more Sith and Jedi around) and the New Republic (set immediately after the original trilogy, explaining what became of all the characters. It could also reach 40k levels of grimdark with races like the [[Dark Eldar|Yuuzhan]] [[Tyranids|Vong]] characters like [[Vampire|Darth Nihilus]] and beings like [[Old Ones|Abeloth]].

The EU is no longer considered in the main canon of the films and TV series, due to the new sequel trilogy which does not follow EU, the reason for this being, according to Disney, that following EU would restrict their creative freedom. The reaction to this was, well, [[skub|mixed, for lack of a better word.]] They've since noted that they'll slot ''some'' of it in on a case-by-case basis, but the canon is in a highly fluid state at the moment. EU is now officially called Star Wars Legends, though most fans still refer to it as EU.

==Why is it so popular?==

Star Wars is as accessible as science fiction gets. It doesn't require extensive knowledge of a fictional world (a la ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' or ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'') or cultural background (as ''[[Star Trek]]'' sometimes does) to make sense. Those elements are present for those who want them, but they largely stay in the (very rich and vibrant) background. It has well-shot action and good ''enough'' dialogue to make it interesting for both kids and adults (as well as allowing parents who grew up with it to watch it with their children, thereby hooking the next generation of viewers). It has simple, good-vs.-evil themes that resonate with almost anyone, anywhere, at any time. The science fiction elements are generally handled well if you don't obsess over making science fiction realistic and hard. It's a prime gateway drug for sci-fi which still holds up to the experienced eye, [[Isaac Asimov]] saw and rather enjoyed the films. All in Fourteen hours of cinema, plus optional sides for those who want it.

There's a ton of merchandise that is, of course, really cool. Also, given it's crossed over into the mainstream, many people feel comfortable being part of the community without feeling judged as "nerds" (as they might with ''Lord of the Rings'', ''D&D'', ''Star Trek'', ''Warhammer'', etc.).

Again, they roughly follow the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. If you think about it, 6 of the 9 films can be summarized as: hero begins his journey under the tutelage of a wise (more or less) man, they encounter a threat which has captured/enslaved a princess/girl, who was in one way or another connected to an important secret (usually a superweapon but could be the identity of a political figure or the location of someone); the heroes save the princess/girl but someone dies tragically in a battle against the villain while someone else is blowing up a space station or a spaceship afterwards they are happy, they celebrate and mourn the loss of the poor bloke who died.

Additionally, the first film can be summarized as a samurai and a gunslinger team up to save a princess from Nazis in space. That is multiple cinematic genres at once, following the style of the epic myth.

==Setting==
Due to article bloat, [[Star Wars Setting]] is now its own page.

==The rise of the original trilogy==

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away....etc etc you all know the lines.

A man called George Lucas had the idea to create a series of epic sci-fi space operas that would become so successful that Disney would take notice and give it the franchise fluttering eye lashes, trying to seduce it.

They would be called... ''Flash Gordon''.

Unfortunately for Georgie boy, and fortunately for modern nerddom, Dino de Laurentiis already owned ''Flash Gordon'', and were busy making their own, hilariously eighties version, so he said, screw it, I'll make my own!

He decided to start with the fourth movie in the series he envisioned, for at the time he didn't have the special effects to create the first three to the standard he wanted, and/or he just kinda made up the first movie as he went along (drawing heavily on Akira Kurosawa's seminal samurai action film, ''Hidden Fortress'' in the process as well as the book [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces''], a complex 1949 Joseph Campbell analysis of the various mythologies of human history all boiled down into the basic archtypes and elements required in heroic myth). So Episode Four ''A New Hope'' was created (simply titled ''Star Wars'' at the time) and it is not an exaggeration to say it changed the face of sci-fi and general moviemaking forever, bringing a new era of special effects and imagination to cinema and changing the lives of many who would go onto to become dedicated fan boys.

Originally, the studio had forced Lucas to take ever-increasing paycuts for what they were sure was going to be a flop, and only let him keep merchandising rights. However, whatever his flaws, George Lucas was a man of vision. Having helped pioneer the summer blockbuster, he went on to do the same to ginormous piles of movie-tie-in memorabilia. His production company, Lucasfilm ended up rolling in dosh, and with Episode Five ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and Episode Six ''The Return of the Jedi'', the legend of Star Wars and its place in cultural history was assured.

tl;dr: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4w7ChpuaM Pretty much this.]

==The coming of the prequel trilogy==
With the year 2000 coming, George Lucas felt that special effects technology had reached the level he wanted and began to create the first three movies in the star wars story he had envisioned. (As a side-note, he also made some touch-ups to the three original films, re-mastering them with special effects and a couple of extra scenes that weren't doable with the eighties' animatronics. But those were mostly accepted/shrugged away since they didn't deeply modify anything.)

The hype for the movies was immense.

And then the first movie, Episode One ''The Phantom Menace'' came out.....and there was nerd rage beyond expectation.

Part of the problem was that the immense expectations of the fandom had grown until anything less-than-perfect simply would not do, so perhaps that is somewhat to blame for the reaction to the prequel trilogy. In a vacuum one has to admit that they aren't completely ''[[Twilight|terrible films]]'' .

Episode Two ''Attack of the Clones'' and Episode Three ''Revenge of the Sith'' followed after a few years each and didn't garner nearly as much hatred, though fans complained they didn't match the greatness of the original trilogy, more concerned with flashy action and effects than competent story-telling; but hooo-boy did it deliver in flashy action, with laser armed [[MI-24 Hind|MI-24's]] full of <s>storm</s>troopers extracting jedi from a coliseum full of shooty killbots.

''Revenge of the Sith'' did, however, receive higher ratings than ''Return of the Jedi'', and is generally seen as the best and most-complete of the three prequel films as a story. Unusually the novelization alters some details and is considered a legitimately good book on its own merits.

What was generally more well received (despite a rocky start with a two hour pilot being pressed into service as a movie and an art style that took some time to gel) during this time for Star Wars was the Clone Wars animated series (both the traditionally-animated ''Clone Wars'' and the later seasons of the CGI show '''''The''' Clone Wars'', the latter which most everyone agrees is what the prequels should have been), following the war between the Republic and the Confederacy that sprung up during the time between the second and third of the prequels.

It'd be ''really'' hard to find a group of movies more skubtastic than the prequel trilogy, and saying a good or bad thing about it in front of the wrong crowd's sure to provoke huge amounts of nerdrage. In defense of the prequel trilogy's sins, they did at least do their own thing. Because of how much money the original trilogy made, practically every form of media in the 80s and 90s aped it to some form or another, and instead of falling back on the same old shit the prequels branched out and tried to get out of the franchise's comfort zone a bit. While a lot of it sucked, it blazed a trail for better writers to follow and helped liven up the universe by showing us the galaxy beyond fuckhueg spaceships and faux-Western shitholes like Tatooine. And all but the most [[Neckbeard|diehard OT purists]] can get behind shit like Naboo architecture, the Clone Army and Mace "The Ace" Windu. From a story perspective the worst sin of the prequels was demystifying the force, and subsequent works have largely swept that detail under the carpet.

==Disney and the sequel trilogy==

Finally, all the efforts by Disney to woo George Lucas paid off and in 2012 Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise for 4 billion dollars and immediately announced they would produce a new trilogy of films set after the original trilogy.

Expectations were almost as high as the private fears of the fans. Bringing on the creative talent behind the [[skub|skubtastic]] ''[[Star Trek]]'' reboot was equally... well, [[skub|take a wild guess]].

For sake of sanity, these section have been condensed. Read at your own peril.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 7: The Mouse Awakens===
''Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens'' debuted in December of 2015, and reception was what you would expect: the film was immediately a massive success from a monetary standpoint as everyone ([[China|almost]]) everywhere rushed to the theaters in response to the hype, with children engaging in as many repeat viewings as their parent's money could allow as fans did the same thing with their own. It has become a financial hit with the general public and a (critically) generally well-reviewed piece, with decent cinematography, special effects, technical stuff, etc. It also went on to become the third biggest financial success in film history (at the time), when not adjusted for inflation.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Fan response was a good deal more mixed. Many criticize the plot for rehashing Episode IV, without doing anything to establish its own identity and claim that it had a bland main character, [[Mary Sue|who had too many abilities]] whereas others find the replication of ''Star Wars'' feel an acceptable trade and praise it for being a decent action film, [[skub|and claim the lead doesn't outdo any of the previous main characters]].

Some would argue that by rehashing the original trilogy it basically nullified the accomplishments of the original crew; the Empire's still around, they've got yet another superweapon, Han & Leia split up, Luke failed to rebuild the Jedi, etc. Other fans praised it simply for being a new Star Wars that was better than the prequel trilogy (expectations were lowered due to those, to be honest). Some see poor storytelling when there was no proper showing of what went on in the galaxy 3 decades since Palpatine died, and not explaining what caused big character changes like why Han returned to his old ways or Luke ran from his friends was critical. Other say this is going to be explained in the next film and people should keep their curiosity. Some argue even with their superweapon, none of the villains feel threatening. Others argue the incompetence of the main villain is a fresh change and the point of the plot will be to see him change, to be more competent, or even learn to become good.

Overall, those against argued JJ Abrams' mystery box approach may do well for a TV series but does not mesh with films that take years to make. Defendants held the position that fans should wait to see whether the next film will do anything with the unexplained plot points.

Coincidentally, when Hamill and Fisher were originally approached by Disney to reprise their roles as Luke and Leia, they ''didn't want to do it'' right from the start. But, they didn't want to give an out-and-out "no" answer either, so they told Disney they'd return if Harrison Ford agreed to return as Han Solo as well. Knowing how much Ford ''hated'' Solo, Hamill and Fisher figured they were safe, until Disney irresistibly sweetened the deal for Ford by agreeing to kill off his character, thus forcing a reluctant Hamill and Fisher to make good on their deal... [[skub|only for the three characters to never appear on the screen at the same time.]] To be fair, Hamill has a history of saying he won’t do something only to immediately agree like he’s making a standard sitcom gag in real life, even if that usually just applies to still voicing the Joker in Batman media.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars Rebels===
Disney also released their own CGI series: ''Star Wars: Rebels'', which is actually pretty ok (considering that it airs on Disney XD, it should be no surprise that they've toned down the graphic depictions of gratuitous violence, much to the chagrin of [[Neckbeards|those who love overly gory deaths]]). It focuses less on the Jedi that have come to dominate the franchise and more on the "boots on the ground" experience of the average characters, and while the show started slow and small, the plot gained momentum as the series progressed, especially after the first season.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Rebel movement starts to grow, several characters return from ''The Clone Wars'', and the enemies the main characters have to face steadily get darker and more dangerous as more of the Empire’s attention gets attracted. When Darth Vader gets involved (played by none other than [[Awesome|James Earl Jones himself]]) he immediately proceeds to [[Awesome|open a 24-pack of unstoppable whoop-ass on the rebel scum]]. The return of Maul resulted in three character deaths (possibly four), the crippling of one main character with another well on his way down the dark side, and to top it all off Maul himself was on the loose once again. Things did not turn out so well [[Grimdark|last time that happened]], so expect the body count to rise, especially with [[Creed|Grand Admiral Thrawn]] now also coming onto the scene. The show also continues the trend set by ''The Clone Wars'' in making the Force mystical again, though whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how you felt about the <s>bullshit</s> <s>scientific</s> [[Skub|skubtastic]] midichlorian explanation of the Prequels. The animation is on point with ''The Clone Wars'', which considering it's Disney should surprise less than nobody. Oh, and Steve Blum voices one of the main characters. However, it is also noted that Star Wars Rebels may indeed have [[Grimdark|dark ending]]. Which, to a degree, it did. An important character dies, and his padawan flees into the unknown regions, leaving us with two other characters to go look for him after the second Death Star blows up.

[[Skub|The way that Filoni (the creator of Rebels and The Clone Wars) has handled the Mandalorians, a fan-favorite warrior-culture based upon the Scots and Vikings, has either been met with praise from those who despised Traviss and her overpowering of said culture, or utter RAGE that he turned many of them into either pacifist morons or bloodthirsty barbarians- usually that particular criticism comes from the Traviss fanboys]]. Do take note, however, that the old ways for the Mandalorians are making their way back into canon, such as the language, the emphasis on martial honor, and the decentralized nature of their government.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars: Rogue One===
December of 2016 brought us the first standalone Star Wars movie, "Rogue One", showing the theft of the original Death Star plans.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

While "Rogue One" can be justly criticized for lacking in character development, that was basically mandated by being set just before another movie whose actors were now 40 years too old to reprise their previous roles. The cast of the movie includes almost no one who appears in Episode IV, and the few familiar faces who do appear show up as cameos. (Fair warning: spoilers)

Accordingly, every main character dies by the end. It still manages to pack quite a lot of [[awesome]] into the movie, with Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk and Darth Vader all used to great effect. Rogue One also answers several questions, plugs several plot holes, and just generally makes A New Hope make a lot more sense in retrospect. (No wonder Vader wasn't impressed when Leia claimed to be on a "diplomatic mission.") It also has the distinctions of being the only Star Wars movie to focus on regular soldiers instead of Jedi, and being more like the original Star Wars than any of the sequels, including the other two of the main trilogy. (The original, back before it was "A New Hope", was a genre mashup of samurai + gunslinger rescue princess from space Nazis, then team up for a World War II dogfight. This one is wuxia cast + heist crew do a heist in a WWII trench warfare war zone. There's surprisingly little 'War' in Star Wars.) Much, much [[Skub]] still exists of course, since no Star Wars movie will ever please all the neckbeards but out of the five post-Disney Star Wars movies released so far, this one is definitely the least divisive and arguably the best of the bunch.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===Episode 8: The Last Royalty Check (aka zomg Luke dies!)===
On December 14 2017, ''Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi'' was released world wide. The critical reception was [[Bullshit|extremely positive]], with many critics considering it the best movie in the series since The Empire Strikes Back. The fan reception has been a great deal more negative and [[Skub|mixed]], and a number of fans are convinced that Disney leaned on media outlets to shill the new movie or else. If you have watched the Empire Strikes Back, you ''WILL'' be [[Rage|disappointed at best]], if you want to see a Star Wars film that would finally expand the characters of Kylo Ren and Rey, you ''WILL'' be satisfied and disappointed at the same time, if you want to watch the film because it is the last film starring the great and wonderful Carrie Fisher, you ''WILL'' feel hollow and sad inside, and if you came to see a pair of lightsaber-wielding punks involved in one of the [[Skub|greatest or worst lightsaber battles of the franchise, you ''WILL'' be pleased or horribly disappointed]]. The Last Jedi is seen as one of the most divisive films in the franchise by the fandom, [[FAIL|which is one hell of an achievement]] considering other films.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The complaints about The Last Jedi are many: the treatment of Luke (which even his actor, Mark Hamill, hated, to the point that he has no interest in playing Luke again), Leia's Superman asspull, Finn's plot arc that serves practically zero purpose and has him undergo the same character arc as the last movie, the forced humor, the complete disregard for established [[fluff]], disregard for even the most basic laws of physics, the fact that the central conflict is essentially the same as the one in the originals right down to the last stand ripped straight out of ''Empire'', the PC bullshit (a hipster admiral who the plot always treats as being in the right despite killing 90% of the Resistance, the Gilded Age planet arc that [[Namek|sucks up a third of the movie to no benefit,]] Rose expressing her desire to get BLACKED with a horrendous and forced #LoveTrumpsHate one-liner in the final act) added solely to virtue-signal and the whole thing being basically a 2,5h screed against the franchise it belongs to and the culture which spawned it.

Fans have also criticized the movie for dropping or discarding major plot points from TFA and repeatedly invoking Shamalamadingdong-tier plot twists for cheap gotchas that are somehow less interesting than the recycled cliches they play off of. Director Rian Johnson has responded by shitting on said critics and trying to defend the film on social media like something out of an ED or RW article. (Important note: George Lucas never tried to defend the prequels, despite the huge backlash at the time, and he agreed with fans that [[C.S Goto|The Star Wars Holiday Special]] was an abomination.) It later came out that Johnson had not been given any kind of roadmap beyond Lucas' old and unfinished concept scripts and was not allowed to see what Abrams had done until TLJ was too far into production to write in most of the previous movie's plot points, which makes the fail Disney's fault just as much as it is Johnson's. Except we also know that he had at least a modicum of influence over the ending of TFA, so they must have talked on at least some degree. As with TFA Lucasfilm has tried to paper over the holes with tie-in material, and just like TFA the fans recognize the damage control.

The Last Jedi has without a doubt torn the fanbase apart in ways even the prequels didn't come close to, with many fans declaring that they have dropped the sequel trilogy. Even Star Wars' famous merchandising has taken a mauling, as [[/toy/]] giggles at Rose Tico and General Hux figures warming shelves while new product shipments go straight from the transport case to the clearance bin.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg_FoEy8T_A I'm Solo, Han Solo, Han Solo]===
On May 25th 2018, the 41st anniversary of the franchise, ''Solo: A Star Wars Story'' was released. The general consensus seems to be that it is the most average film in the series. At the very least, most people agree that it is at least better than The Last Jedi (if barely) and the backlash from that movie can be felt even in Solo: many fans have chosen to boycott the movie. Even before release, many fans had derided the whole affair as unnecessary: no one was really asking for a Han Solo origin movie, particularly one without Harrison Ford. Han Solo's entire life history had already been explored thoroughly in EU novels and comics, so the movie could only be a retread or a retcon, both things most fanbases tend to disapprove of.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Whether it is because of this boycott or not, [[Not as planned|something no one expected happened:]] ''Solo'' was a box office bomb. Its opening weekend performed way below expectations and as of this writing, it has only made half of the money it needs for it to break even. Disney still continued to labor under the delusion that China would save their bottom line regardless of the fact that Star Wars has never been popular in China.

So what is it like? Well, rather than being a space opera like the other films, this is a space Western. Rather than being about large-scale battles and saving the galaxy from tyranny, it's about heists and the galactic underworld. (Except for the Mimban sequence, which you'd swear was lifted from a live-action Imperial Guard movie.) It's essentially Disney's reboot/retcon of the old EU Han Solo novels, taking things that were mentioned offhand in the original trilogy (like how Han did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs) and making that the subject of an entire movie. The film was perhaps cursed from the beginning due to its [[Fail|troubled production.]] How troubled? The lead needed an acting coach to get through his shoots (Han may have walked away with the Falcon, but Danny Glover's Lando stole the spotlight every time) and 70% of the movie had to be reshot by a different director due to [[Butthurt|creative differences]] between Lucasfilm and the original directors.

The fail only compounded when it premiered and fans got to see what those "creative differences" may have wrought: the writing staff started spewing bullshit to the press about Lando being "pansexual" with no precedent in any Star Wars production including ''Solo'', the film's tone is a schizophrenic nightmare to the last-minute reshoots and Han's sidekick for most of the movie is [[What|a self-built female droid social justice warrior]] named [[/v/|L3-37]]. Audiences ''cheered and applauded'' when that <s>man</s>human-hating self-insert character finally fucking died. Perhaps the most damning sin is that these are the movie's only notable qualities: take them away and you're left with a movie that would make you think "Huh, that was okay," and then never think about it again for the rest of your life, were it not for the crippling disappointment of seeing one of the most beloved franchises in the world fall so far. Between the boycotts, the mediocrity of the movie itself, and [https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Gawker certain news outlets] claiming that the driving force behind said boycotts was [[/pol/]], ''Solo'' cratered so badly that [[Exterminatus|all non-''Episode 9'' Star Wars movies were for a short time shelved indefinitely, and the only side-movie still being worked on is the obligatory Boba Fett origin movie, which is more likely to sell tickets based on the name alone.]] Incidentally, one of the writers picked by Lucasfilm to handle ''Solo'''s tie-in content, Cavan Scott, has been hired by [[Games Workshop]] for the [[Warhammer Adventures]] series.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker (aka Plan Palpa-Nine from Outer Space)===
Your opinion of this movie is very easy to predict based on what you thought of the others; if you found The Last Jedi to be "refreshing", you'll absolutely HATE this one. If you hate all Disney content aside from ''maybe'' The Mandalorian, you'll hate this one as much as the others. If you absolutely detested The Last Jedi but have mixed opinions of the rest, you'll probably consider this to be the best of the new movies to varying degrees of actual enthusiasm. The movie largely undoes or ignores swathes of the previous one.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

After finishing shooting, the film was shown to test audiences (which JJ Abrams lied never happened). The film was extremely poorly received, one of many reasons being because it had [[Mary Sue|Rey curb-stomping Palpatine by herself in the final battle]] (test audiences reportedly either laughing at the film or had to be stopped from walking out of the test screenings). The poor showing made (then) Disney CEO Bob Iger - who was overseeing the screening - furious, and he immediately ordered the film to be reshot. The resulting reshoots were so extensive, [http://archive.ph/RLj94 they spanned months and the film didn't have a final edit till December 2019, the month of release], causing trailers to be so desperate for footage that wouldn't be cut they had to fill half the length with footage from prior films and stuff used in prior trailers. Further complicating matters was that the ''very stupid'' plot was leaked months before release. Despite extensive denials from Disney and media outlets, the leaks were proven correct by getting then unrevealed names and plot objects right. Camera leaks the week before release showed very little of the fantastically stupid content leaked months beforehand was changed, only minor details.

Before reading on, be aware that Rey and Kylo are no longer movie-type Force users, they have been changed to video game characters. Like KOTOR and Jedi Academy type where you just get powers by killing enough dudes. None of the powers are new to the franchise, but have been rarely seen and in some cases never before have in movies. You should also know that unlike the first Visual Dictionary that mostly just gave little prop trivia and plot hooks for other works, and the second which was mostly irrelevant until it gets referenced in a decade or two, the final Visual Dictionary is damn near required reading (this shit will get a "VD" to indicate it) since a lot of explanations were cut in the reshoots and recuts. Like for example the connection between Rey and Kylo is a "Force Dyad", basically one soul in the Force that inhabits two bodies (setting up a bit of a snarl what happens when one dies and not the other, and implying the personality is mostly in the brain which is why they can have unique experiences, but whatever) and warps space/time. This is why Rey was inexplicably powerful and knew how to do shit instinctively, because Kylo's training passed onto her, and likewise her nonstop playing with X-Wing training sims as a child made him a badass pilot. Dyads used to be far more common in the KOTOR era, and were apparently the inspiration for the Sith Rule Of Two. This is never mentioned in the final cut of the film, but leaks show it was in one of the earlier ones.

The movie pressed on with breakneck speed that doesn't have time for musical interludes or wipe transitions, the opening crawl informing you that Palpatine has somehow returned and sent a message to the galaxy with the Resistance trying to rebuild and gather information, Rey being trained by Leia on the planet Ajan Kloss (AKA not!Yavin #2, VD) after repairing Anakin's lightsaber (VD) who had received partial training from Luke before stopping for reasons explained later in the movie and supplementing the rest with her pouring over the Jedi texts, and Kylo Ren trying to find Palpatine because his existence is a threat to his rule. The movie takes a lot of inspiration from KOTOR era lore with Ren finding a Sith McGuffin Holocron-type navigation device on Mustafar (VD) showing him the secret planet of the Sith (not Korriban/Pesegam/Moraband, this one is a planet in a red nebula that is under constant lightning storms called Exegol). There he finds a MASSIVE Sith cult that has kept itself secret and managed to not only build a fucking massive fleet of Star Destroyers equipped with planetkiller guns like something straight out of the old canon, but divisions of Stormtroopers, technicians, and officers to fill them along with the typical cultists in robes who administer to keeping Palpatine alive and seeing to his Sith alchemy shit...which includes tanks containing multiple clones of Snoke, revealing the guy was literally born looking like that with a manufactured backstory all so Palpatine could use him as a puppet to create the First Order (which is almost a meta commentary about the backstory controversy).

Kylo is offered the chance to be the new Emperor by Palpatine, who is a corpse kept barely alive through methods some would consider... Unnatural, while strapped to a machine with [[Lord Kroak|his spirit sticking nearby]] (the filmmakers zig-zagged on the nature of this; first it was the original Palpatine who had somehow duped everyone in ''Return of the Jedi'' with a clone stand in, then the reshoots changed it to the original's zombie-like rotting corpse animated by his lingering spirit and Lucasfilm later retconned him to be a zombie-like clone of Palpatine after the film's release). The only requirement for Palps to pass him Emperorship is killing Rey, although Ren is immediately suspicious of the other strings attached (including choking a guy in a hissyfit when that concern is voiced) and decides instead to recruit Rey again, this time as a co-Emperor.

Finn and Poe obtain information about a spy within the First Order (yeah, you know its fucking Hux even before they say there is a spy at all) while Rey gets visions during her training with Leia. The spy confirms that Palpatine is legit and the info about the fuckmassive deathfleet is legit, and Rey finds the Jedi texts contain notes from Luke about his search for that planet. They go to his last clue, a desert planet that isn't Tatooine and is the middle of a festival where they find Lando has been holed up enjoying himself since him and Luke traveled there. They are immediately spotted by the First Order and escape from them to find the ship of one of Palpatine's servants who had last been seen there. They fall into sinkholes around the ship created by giant tunneling worms, and find the skeleton of Sheev's boy as well as a Sith dagger. 3PO is programmed with the Sith language, but his programming from the Old Republic era forbids him from giving the translation to civilians. Rey manages to get the sand worms to leave them alone by using Force powers to heal one's wound, and they attempt to get the Sheev's servant's ship up and running before they are attacked by the First Order. Chewie is taken prisoner and Rey wrecks Kylo's TIE Fighter before the two engage in a Force tug of war to pull the transport Chewie is on, which ends in Rey accidentally Force Lightning it and causing it to explode when she becomes frustrated with the stalemate. Chewie is revealed to have been on another transport and is taken to Ren's flagship Star Destroyer while the heroes, instead of do something sensible like seek a Rebel leader who can give security clearance for 3PO's protocol (Leia's the obvious choice), they head to a planet under VERY Nazi-like occupation to find a droid technician who can hack 3PO's memory. They encounter a woman from Poe's past, revealing he was a former spice smuggler like Han until abandoning his crew (causing them to fall into debt and become bitter at him) to join the Resistance. She threatens to turn the group in to pay off their debt [[Mary Sue| but Rey kicks her ass, earning her respect and she takes them to the technician without further incident.]] The technician unlocks 3PO's memory at the cost of wiping him. The translation reveals the dagger is the key to finding the Sith navigation McGuffin they are looking for. During this BB-8 reactivates Sheev's servant's old droid, who doesn't do much.

The heroes proceed to board Ren's flagship with the help of a First Order officer's badge, and shoot their way through as they free Chewie. Rey and Ren have another linked vision where her parents are revealed to have attempted to hide her from her grandfather Palpatine, who wanted to merge the souls of himself and '''ALL''' other preceding Sith (presumably not Revan, since his redemption is canon) while he discovers they are on his ship and orders it put on lockdown. Rey is confronted in the hangar by Ren, who offers her to join him again. She refuses and the Falcon appears, the engines blowing away the Stormtroopers while Rey jumps aboard. The crew head to Endor after finding out from Sheev's servant's old droid that it was where he was going to go next (this is the only thing the droid does other than serve as a "pet the dog moment" for the cast a few times) where the Death Star wreckage of the disk and throne room landed, encountering a division of former child-soldier Stormtroopers like Finn who went AWOL. The dagger has a slide-out metal prong from the handle which perfectly lines up with the corridor leading to Sheev's throne room. The team work on repairing the Falcon while Rey presses on ahead, alone, to the Death Star wreckage. Once in the throne room a hidden door opens, revealing a sanctum full of crystal mirrors that are the same as the ones she saw in her vision in Force Awakens (the scene where she snaps her fingers and all the mirrored ones do as well). There she finds the Sith McGuffin and gets a "The Cave" vision of herself as a Sith with a red double-bladed lightsaber which she fights. Kylo is waiting for her in the throne room, and crushes the Sith McGuffin in his hand before informing her they are linked in the Force as one soul inhabiting two bodies and offering her again to be the Vader to her Palpatine which she again refuses. The two fight while Finn and one of the Stormtroopers try to rescue her. They fight their way onto the remnants of the Death Star hangar, reminiscent of Anakin and Obi-wan in Revenge Of The Sith with water instead of lava, before Ren freezes as he senses his mother start to die. This pause gives Rey time to grab his lightsaber and stab him before she freezes sensing Leia actually pass away. Rey uses the Force to heal him, then steals his TIE Fighter while Poe and Finn return to the Resistance base. Rey initially attempts to hide on Luke's monastery to let Palpatine's bloodline die with her, but after lighting Kylo's TIE on fire (so she's destroyed 2 of his personal TIE at this point) Luke appears as a Force ghost to tell her <strike>Rian Johnson</strike> he was wrong, and was motivated by fear when he tried to hide. He reveals that all the Jedi who came before are rooting for her, and tells her where Leia's lightsaber is hidden. He reveals she stopped her training because in a vision she saw that her son would be destroyed by the Dark Side, and a Light Side counterpart would take up her blade instead. Meanwhile, Kylo is visited by the memory of Han. The two reenact the scene from Force Awakens, only this time Kylo throws his lightsaber into the sea and renounces the name Kylo Ren to become simply Ben again. Meanwhile the First Order blow up Poe's home planet where the droid technician and Poe's old crew were, although they had managed to get offworld by that point. Also, R2-D2 restores C-3PO's memory wipe by finding a backup which contains everything from before the mission.

Luke lifts his X-Wing from the waves and Rey scavenges the Sith McGuffin from the flaming wreck of Kylo's ship. As she proceeds to the Sith planet she sends out a beacon to track her progress, giving the entire galaxy a map to the Sith fleet. Poe, now leader of the Resistance, sends Lando with the Falcon and Nien Nunb to gather any forces they can, all the ones who refused to aid them in The Last Jedi, while the rest of the Resistance gears up to attack Sheev's fleet before they can leave the storm cloud. The initial plan is to destroy the navigation device which orients them to the rest of the galaxy without which the fleet cannot leave, until the commander of the flagship (a former Imperial officer) realizes what they are doing and orders it to be shut down so his own ship could serve as the navigation for the rest. Rey confronts Sheev in a coliseum/throne room full of the Cultist parents of the personnel of the fleet (VD) and is informed of his plan to have her kill him so all the Sith could merge with her and rule as basically the God Emperor of Star Wars. She raises her lightsaber before using the strange wormhole Force connection thing they have to pass it to Ben, who had gotten there with a salvaged TIE from the Death Star wreckage and was being beaten by his former servants, the Knights Of Ren. Armed with Luke's old lightsaber he kills them and proceeds to the throne room. Ben arrives and the two attempt to fight him. He simply Force Pushes them back and forces them to kneel before draining a portion of their souls, the "two bodies one soul" thing apparently being a massive source of Force power he can heal himself with to rule in his own rejuvenated body again (but with Darth Maul eyes) rather than Rey's. Meanwhile, the ex-Stormtroopers and Resistance ground personnel lead by Finn land on the flagship Star Destroyer (its still in the atmosphere of the Sith planet, thus gravity and breathable air applies) and due to bringing goat-horse things from Endor are not affected by onboard EMP that would otherwise short out speeders and tanks (which is a thing from past canon, mostly comics and novels, which they use to explain why such a thing doesn't happen more often). Meanwhile, Lando appears with a fucking enormous fleet (remember the backstory that the New Republic didn't have a fleet, instead paying for every planet to have a militia of their own which would unite when there was a big enough threat? Well, JJ finally remembered because all those fucks show up alongside a neat little game of "spot that ship from the series you know" in a few shots). They begin attacking the superweapons underneath the Star Destroyers directly, causing chain reactions that blow the entire ship.

Ben is Force-pushed by Sheev into a pit as revenge for how Vader did the same thing to him before taunting the dying Rey and unleashing a MASSIVE Force Lightning storm which shorts out the fleet. While this is going on the spirits of all the dead Jedi (like pretty much anyone they could find to record a line from any of the past movies or shows, including Ahsoka; which is pretty lame since it means she was killed off-screen, with natural causes being unlikely since Ahsoka wouldn't have been 80 yet, and even that's below the average Togruta life expectancy, though this may not necessarily be the case according to Filoni) who inhabit her body the same way that Palpatine is currently full of all the Sith. Rey manages to stand and deflects his Force Lightning with Leia's lightsaber, which isn't enough until Ben manages to climb out of the pit and throw her Luke's lightsaber; with the two together she's able to walk close enough to Sheev for his Force Lightning to burn him, and despite this being the third fucking time this has happened he does not turn off the lightning and instead Raiders Of The Lost Ark's himself into a skeleton before blowing up and destroying not only himself but the spirits of all the past Sith. Despite Palpatine's plan being to possess Rey when she kills him, for some reason he doesn't do so. The Jedi spirits leave Rey and she dies, with the barely lingering on Ben healing her. They share a kiss (reminder that since Sheev created Anakin, they're basically cousins, and their relationship is so adversarial it makes Edward and Bella's from Twilight look healthy, something the novelization tries to claim is "purely platonic") before Ben dies. His body vanishes, as does Leia's. The Resistance/Militia fleet destroy all the Star Destroyers after Finn's ground crew hijacks one of the cannons of the flagship to shoot at the ship bridge, killing the last of the old Empire and First Order leadership.

The heroes return to the Resistance planet where they celebrate, scenes showing the rest of the galaxy shooting the last of the First Order Star Destroyers play, Chewie is given Han's old medal from A New Hope, and the ex-Stormtrooper leader is hinted to be Lando's daughter or grandaughter implying a spinoff with the two. After the celebrations Rey returns to Luke's old home on Tatooine where she buries Anakin and Leia's lightsabers, revealing she built her own from her Force vision only with yellow blades instead of red ones. An old woman who was a neighbor of Owen and Beru comments nobody had been to that place in years and asks Rey's name. Seeing the Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia, she tells the woman her name is Rey Skywalker. The End.

Because god knows this fandom can no longer agree on fucking anything anymore, there was immediately fan wars going on everywhere Star Wars fans are found. Fans accused haters of review bombing, those who hated the movie claimed the critic score (which, if you recall, is mostly people who liked The Last Jedi and hate this movie for doing a U-turn on it) vindicates them. The fan fighting probably won't ever end, since now we apparently have to reevaluate if A New Hope and the Kenner Star Wars toys were ever good in the first place because some contrarians now claim the prequels are the pinnacle of Star Wars. Whatever the case, Disney CEO Bog Iger resigned in the middle of the work week in late February 2020, indicating that the backlash and fan alienation had a deeper impact than anticipated.
</div>
</div>

==Expanded Universe==

It can be said what makes a franchise into a long term lasting thing is when a wealth of extra story and background is created that expands on the original story far beyond what there was. It could be argued Star Wars leads the race in this, as the sheer amount of extra novels, graphic novels and games based on Star Wars can and does overwhelm the ordinary fan.

===The original EU/Star Wars "Legends"===

[[Image: Choices_of_One_PB_art.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Before Cara, before Rey, before Ashoka, Nomi Sunrider or Padme... there was Mara Jade]]
The background has expanded into the distant past before the founding of the current Jedi and Sith orders and into the (not-quite-so) far future looking at the descendants of Luke Skywalker and other popular characters. Uniquely, especially considering [[Warhammer 40K|other]] [[Star Trek|franchises']] track records, the Star Wars Expanded Universe is <strike>remarkably</strike> <strike>sorta</strike> sometimes internally consistent, both with other sources within the universe and with the films themselves, at least in comparison to other comparable settings. Of course, it's got plenty of its own [[C. S. Goto|problem children]] that slipped through, and the [[skub]] mine of it all isn't much shallower than that of 40K. Good portions of it do hold up well, largely due to the efforts of Lucas' company's continuity department leaning on everyone to hold it together. One thing that greatly helps is continuity books and articles aren't afraid to make small retcons to make even the most obscure and shitty sources (like that terrible PS1 fighting game) seem like part of an organized plot. Particularly well-loved parts include characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn (a rare alien officer in the Empire and popular enough that Disney brought him back to the canon from the EU) and Mara Jade (a Force-using former agent of Emperor Palpatine who later turned good, became a Jedi Master, married Luke and had a son with him) - interestingly both were created by the same author [[Timothy Zahn]].

Upon their acquisition, Disney said "fuck it" and threw out everything but the films and the Clone Wars cartoons. Some popular old stuff got mentions or appearances (and Thrawn got to be a major character), but the overall quality is even lower than the old EU. What was set up as a major book contains phrases like "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air" and random virtue signalling. As though to top the previous, Disney literally published a book with an entire chapter about mass wedding farts (Yes. Really.). The only good stuff is from established EU authors writing stuff far away from era of the Disney films.

The [[rage]] over the EU's scrapping was major among many fans of it, but for all Disney's shortcomings, they were in a tight spot. Towards the end all that continuity and consistency got thrown out the airlock for increasingly dumb and disjointed narratives and garbled plot threads to the point that the Star Wars logo was just about as much a sign of quality as the Nintendo approval stamp on shitty SNES games. Though they have their fans, particularly contentious parts include the grimdark invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong - forcenull space-Druchii (no no, not Comorrites though they have the pain and body modification fetishes for it, space-'''Druchii''', riding enslaved tyranid bioships) from another galaxy, a personal-sized spaceship that could blow up whole galaxies and destroy fleets on its own, Mnggal-Mnggal - mindraping gelatin lost on its way to Star Trek, and Abeloth - an ancient (she predates the Jedi and the Sith) yandere Force entity who wandered in from the Cthulhu Mythos and is so dangerous the Jedi and the Sith '''joined forces''' to fight her. It's difficult to envision how Disney could have kept the EU when even before all that it was struggling to find a market beyond the most [[neckbeards|dedicated fans]].

===The Books===

'''The Good EU'''
[[Image: Heir-to-the-empire-cover.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Heir to the Empire (1991): The book that started it all]]
* '''The Thrawn Trilogy''': The origination point for the EU, and focuses on the conflict with the Imperial remnants left over after RotJ. Named for the main villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, who went on to become one of Star Wars most well-loved characters. Basically the story "The Force Awakens" wishes it was. Also introduced Mara Jade, a sexy redhead that's everything Disney wishes Rey was and more.
* '''The Han Solo Adventures''': Star's End was the second spinoff book written and the first good one. Han and Chewie are trying to get some work done on the Falcon and wind up having to bust out some political prisoners to pay for it. Would have made for a better film than ''Solo'' did.
* '''Shadows of the Empire''': Shadows is set between ESB and RotJ and fills in the details of getting the Death Star II's plans, finding out where Han was taken, Luke building his own saber, etc by the introduction of another bounty hunter by the name of Dash Rendar. The Special Edition rerelease of ''A New Hope'' added the Outrider to the background of one scene. Most notable for the fact that it was also adapted into a video game for the N64 and PC.
*'''The Darth Bane Trilogy''': The origin of the Rule of Two for the Sith, along with a compelling protagonist and his apprentice.
* '''Revenge of the Sith''': The novelization is actually considered a serious improvement over the movie itself.

'''The Bad EU'''
* '''Jedi Academy Trilogy''': Luke sets up his academy on Yavin IV and tries to teach [[Rage|Kyp Durron]]. Imperial remnant superweapons hit ludicrous territory with the sun crusher. This was the beginning of Kevin J Anderson hammering out a couple dozen Star Wars books over about four years.
* '''Young Jedi Knights Series''': Set between Jedi Academy and New Jedi Order, mostly follows Han & Leia's kids.
* '''I, Jedi''': A retelling of the Jedi Academy Trilogy (see above) with more of Corran Horn from the first set of X-Wing books. Less derp in general but significantly more [[Mary Sue]]age of Horn.
* '''Legacy of the Force''': The survivors of the Yuuzhan Vong War are trying to rebuild the galaxy, but Jacen Solo turns Sith and becomes the main villain. The book series is infamous for nearly killing the Star Wars EU, threatening the franchise and issues between various writers years before Disney went down the same road (Jacen Solo was also a major influence for Kylo Ren). The biggest complaints were Jacen killing Mara, the heroes becoming idiots whenever they could've stopped the villains, poor dialogue, long-winded writing and the story being overstuffed with allusions to post 9/11 United States.

'''The [[Skub]] EU'''
* '''New Jedi Order''': The longest-running (19 books long) and most divisive story of the EU. Luke's married to Mara and they're rebuilding the Jedi Order while Han and Leia are trying to reconcile the New Republic and Imperial Remnants. Han and Leia are also raising three kids and Mara's got a terminal illness. Then extragalactic aliens called Yuuzhan Vong - [[Imperium of Man|religious fanatics]] with [[Tyranids|organic technology]], a thing for [[Dark Eldar|pain and body modification]] along with [[Culexus|partial immunity to The Force]] - start a war to conquer the Star Wars Galaxy. Chewie dies Majora's Mask style, Mara's illness is cured and she gives birth to Ben Skywalker, the Vong take over Coruscant, lots is learned about the Force and the bodycount goes so high it could give Warhammer 40k a run for its money (365 TRILLION; only the War in Heaven or the Fall of the Eldar had anywhere near that many deaths in one event). A real love-it-or-hate-it series, some parts were good, some were bad and some were weird.
* '''Dark Empire''': Palpatine's back to save a dying franchise decades before Disney tried it. Starts off good, falls apart fast. Known for its love-it-or-hate-it artstyle and dialogue.
* '''Courtship of Princess Leia''': Deals with another Imperial remnant. This one has force witches. It's also ''really'' silly. If you like that, raise this higher. If not, it might even drop lower.
* '''Fate of the Jedi''': People are growing dissatisfied with the Jedi Order following LotF. Luke, Ben and the remaining Jedi are trying to fix things just as a Sith Tribe emerges from hiding. Things take a turn for cosmic horror when a yandere, Force-using eldritch abomination who could doom the galaxy escapes her prison. The Sith apprentice Vestara rises through the ranks and finds herself in a Catwoman/Batman situation with Ben Skywalker. While being an OoM better than the preceding trilogy, FotJ has a very divided opinion among SW fans.

=== Disney Canon ===
[[Image:Star_Wars_Disney_Princesses.jpg|right|400px|thumb|Love it or hate it, they are now official ''Disney Princesses''.]]
It's still [[skub|debatable]] whether or not the new Canon holds up to the old EU, or learns to fix the problems that plagued it. We probably won't see what comes of it for decades to come. Disney Canon, as of 2020, seems to largely be built around the nine main movies (of course), with shows like Rebels and Clone Wars alongside anthology movies fleshing out stories that had been told in comics and books back before the Disney buy-up, but can now be seen on film.

A curious thing that has begun happening: Certain elements of the old EU is slipping into the Disney Canon. Plotlines like the Emperor returning, the Death Star plans heist and Han's path to become the smuggler we know him as all have bits and pieces from EU canon in them. In some cases, whole characters are ported in; the best example is Admiral Thrawn, who appears in Rebels. Other times, popular characters has their traits or stories ported into new ones (Finn and Cassian are both expies of Kyle Katarn, for example). This gives some credence to the argument that Lucasfilms and Disney wanted to wipe the slate with all the stories that had been told in the EU, so they could create their own, fully realized canon Star Wars setting that one could make movies - ''many'' movies - from. Considering the amount of shitty fan-fiction-esque stories the EU had, this may be for the best, but of course, storylines that people have loved for ages are also thrown out with the bathwater.

Now. Detractors of Disney-era Star Wars often talk loads about how the sequel trilogy invalidates the original trilogy, or how Disney screwed over Luke or ignored cool characters like Kyle Katarn. These are semi-valid arguments of course, but they ignore some of the biggest issues with the EU originally - it wasn't sponsored by George Lucas and Lucasfilms. They were sponsored fan-fiction in a sense, semi-canon from the outset and not really something that could be considered a part of the Star Wars setting, though George Lucas did work with the writers to a point, such as with the New Jedi Order book series (he gave them permission to kill off Chewbacca in the story). In fact, George never really considered them real stories; more like a parallel universe of his own Star Wars works. He accepted it because they bring in the big bucks when people would beg to have the official Star Wars logo on anything they produced.

That, and the sequel trilogy, underwhelming as it may be, was George's idea in broad strokes. The series was always going to have a sequel trilogy, and while the outcome isn't exactly what he (or we) wanted, quite a lot of it is. Luke being an exile on a far-away planet, who has to be roused to fight by a new, female Jedi? George's idea, not Disney's. A son of Han and Leia struggling with the Dark Side? Also George's idea (though Disney lifted a lot form the original version - Jacen Solo - for Kylo Ren). If anything, much of the direction comes from Lucasfilms; Disney just wants the movie to sell well. It's similar with Marvel nowadays.

So for better or worse, the Disney Canon is the first time the wider setting of Star Wars beyond the series and movies have become irrevocably canon, rather than "kinda-sorta-canon". Much of what we've gotten that is new is based roughly on George's own work as well. Remember this when discussing EU vs Disney in Star Wars - Either setting is cool for their own reasons, but the Mouse got little to do with it - and if you don't like it, bring it up with big man Lucas. Whatever the case, with Bob Iger's resignation as CEO from Disney (likely not on his terms, as he stated multiple times he would retire in 2021), things are changing (for better or worse).

==Star Wars:The Television Shows==
===Star Wars:The Clone Wars===
Technically, there are two series called similar titles. The first was 2004's ''Star Wars: Clone Wars'', an animated miniseries made by Genndy Tartakovsky (He of Dexter's Lab and [[Samurai Jack]] fame) chronicling, among other things, the titular Clone Wars and introducing a much more sinister General Grievous to the world.

But then we have ''The Clone Wars'', a CGI animated series (and tie-in movie) that we'll be talking about more and contributed more to the EU. One of the most universally known and loved parts of Star Wars, most fans worth their action figures and limited edition movie sets have watched the show and have an opinion on it one way or another. Some of the most notable characteristics are:

* The Clone Troopers are fleshed out,and we see that they are manly motherfuckers who make Guardsmen's balls of steel look like the cardboard their armor is made out of (seriously, in the movie, they literally charge straight into close combat with ''giant armored walkers with large guns'' and jump off roofs to get top of them to shoot them point blank, and punch droids in the face)
* Anakin Skywalker is actually a good, fleshed out character, with a good voice actor and shows his descent to child-murdering Force-choking asshat wasn't just him going 'welp, guess I'll fall to the Dark Side.' There was a fair amount of bad-cop “it was him or me” murder to get there.
* Introduces Ashoka Tano, a major character who's a female Togruta Jedi that's well-written, non-OP, non-Mary Sue and doesn't invalidate characters from the movies. Starts off a bit annoying in the Clone Wars movie, but manages to do something truly special: she ''learns''. Over the course of Clone Wars and Rebels, Ashoka probably has the most character development out of any other Star Wars character.
* Obi-Wan being a sexy one-liner spouting sarcastic badass.
* And many others.

However, there were some pretty derp moments too, such as

* Babysitting episode/movie.
* D-squad, where a bunch of droids become heroes of the Republic.
* Mandalore and how it's fluff was basically screwed 180 degrees, and then some.
* Droids were comic relief of the first and second seasons. It was annoying.

All in all, it was an good show that took some time to find it's feet.

After many years, a seventh season was been announced in an attempt to take away from ''The Last Jedi'' being shit and add ''something'' to the empty Disney Plus lineup. At least some of the episodes will be ones that were in production when the show ended. It promptly disappeared after that announcement for a couple years till it was announced it's coming out in 2019.

===Star Wars: Rebels===
[[Image:WomanYellingAtLothcat.jpeg|right|400px|thumb|''Stop fooling our plan, you rebel scum!'']]
Now that Disney owns Star Wars they can't go a season without something new to run on Disney XD, so after ''The Clone Wars'' ended they needed a series to milk episodes out of and launched ''Rebels''. ''Rebels'' is set a few years before ''A New Hope'' and covers the early formation of the rebellion from the perspective of one cell focused on the planet Lothal. If you liked ''Rogue One'' but thought it should be about 25 hours long and done in cartoony CGI then this is the show for you.

So what did we see in ''Rebels''?

* Grand Admiral Thrawn makes his debut in Disney Star Wars, along with the TIE Defender project. The character doesn’t lose much in the translation, and later on is arguably treated better than the source.
* The bearded old guy in the Endor strike team in RotJ turns out to be Captain Rex. Fan theory at first, later confirmed.
* You CAN [[combi-weapon]] a lightsaber and a blaster, and it's OP as shit
* Force wolves (no, not [[Rune Priest|those force wolves]])
* [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones-style]] Mandos (Krownest is pretty much Space-Winterfell).
* Imperial Inquisitors. Sure they don’t last long, but they were intimidating while they were, and it planted the seed that was used elsewhere.
* Some good appearances by Darth Vader.

So about the wolves... ''Rebels'' turns the force mysticism up past 11. Forget just being precog space monks with laser swords; as far as ''Rebels'' is concerned the Jedi are [[craftworld]] [[eldar]] without the racism. Rebels picks up the torch of the Clone Wars “Force Gods” and mixes in some of the straight-up fantasy shit from the Lucas era novels and the KOTOR/Old Republic Jedi philosophy schools and heresies beyond just “Light good, Dark bad”.

However, there were levels of derp that we got to see in this show, such as the following:

* Since this is a Disney cartoon, the bad guys can't have even a temporary victory. This changes Thrawn and the other Imperials from an imposing force to [[Abbadon|cartoon villains]], although Rebels villains manage to stay intimidating more than Grievous did in Clone Wars.
* Battles slower paced than a Death Guard movement phase. Enjoy characters having full conversations in cover-based shooting when everyone has Stormtrooper aim.
* Lightsabers the shape of toothpicks.
* [[Bullshit|Helicopter lightsabers]]
* Complete bipolarity in tone. This can create some great moments, but invariably ruins the mood episode by episode, or between the A and B plots.
* Iron Squadron. Just...fucking [[Rage|Iron Squadron]]
* Star Destroyers look terrible, mostly due to their bridge towers being way taller than they should be.

All in all, it depends on your preference.

Since the show does have a fair amount of dedicated fans, <strike>likely</strike> possibly more than the sequel trilogy itself, Disney has made a habit of planting Easter Egg references to Rebels in basically everything moving forward, usually in the form of an appearance by the iconic ship The Ghost or the friendly-ish space pirate character Hondo Ohnaka.

===Star Wars: Resistance===
Annnd they had to go and change things again. With ''Rebels'' coming to a close and a burning need to keep Star Wars on their lineup, Disney had a choice: find a new plot and setting for a formula and art style that had produced two successful multi-season shows, or throw it all out and start from scratch. Remember, this is Disney we're talking about, the company that once [[Fail|paid a quarter billion dollars to fire the producer who made ''The Little Mermaid'', ''Beauty and the Beast'', ''Aladdin'', and ''The Lion King'']] only for him to go and [[profit|found Dreamworks]] out of spite.

Like its predecessor, ''Star Wars: Resistance'' sets itself up as a prequel to a trilogy, in this case following the early days of the Resistance in its fight against the First Order. Where it differs from ''Rebels'' is that ''Resistance'' is playing the warm up act for a trilogy that nobody likes. On top of which, the creators abandoned the 3D style that ''Rebels'' inherited from ''The Clone Wars'', and replaced it with a cel style that's half ''Treasure Planet'', half ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' and all ''RWBY''.

To be blunt, this show is 100% pure crystal derp. Our star is Kazuda Xiono, a manic depressive who literally fanboy-ed his way into being a spy under the cover story of being a mechanic, two jobs he is not qualified for. This kid is the Invader Zim of Star Wars. Filling out the cast we have the original only cockney girl in space, an autistic alien, their widower boss who is definitely gonna die, D.Va and her ex-imperial officer dad, and BB-8. Poe Dameron shows up regularly so he can be Ace Fucking Rimmer without having to compete against Rey for the TOP SUE trophy. Reception was so terrible it was confirmed canceled at 2 seasons before the second season even started.

Part of the problem with ''Resistance'' is that the First Order has a doomfort that can frag planets across the galaxy, yet has to resort to hiring pirates to encourage settlements into accepting the First Order's protection racket. Palpy's empire was a model of efficient, heavy handed governance; its evil intent veiled from the masses who mostly resent it for bringing order. The First Order on the other hand is basically just Cobra Command, a font of evil hamstrung by flailing incompetence. As mentioned earlier, the backstory for the Resistance and First Order is basically that the First Order are a mobile pirate fleet with one untested secret base weapon lead by old farts of dubious actual leadership abilities from the Empire and their fanatical children with grunts made up of brainwashed child soldiers kidnapped from pioneer settlements while the Resistance is just a tiny militia that is so poorly funded they don’t even qualify as a single fleet since their few outdated capital ships are crewed by outdated droids and they don’t even have enough fighters to protect them, but rather than depict the potentially interesting dynamic this suggests the series just tries to be Rebels again, the same path the movies took even though at this point both factions are even smaller than they were in the movies.

===Star Wars: The Mandalorian===

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti western's so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up. Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well know spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Adeptus_Arbites|Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way" their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times, (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing). The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand awesome.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Jedi''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

==Wookieepedia==
One of the largest fan wikis ever created, this bad boy is extensively cited, has enormous variety, and has page upon page of talk. It was if Lexicanum, the 40k fan wiki, and our own glorious site were fused into a terrible beast.

==Impact on 1d4chan and associated games etc==

Star Wars has had subtle and clear impacts on a number of other franchises and genres and it can be ''incredibly'' hard to gauge the extent of it all. Certainly it didn't create the concepts of sci-fi, space battles, sweeping storylines, and a blending of mystical and scientific ideas, but it certainly popularized them during the years of the original trilogy and influenced many people that would go on to have interests in sci-fi, fantasy and epic adventure today.

Hell, look me in the eye and tell me that the lightsaber didn't give us the [[power weapon]]. But then again, magic weapons.
==Sabacc and Pazaak==
A rather unusual entry here but it's well in line, Sabacc is an actual tabletop card game from the Star Wars universe which is basically a hybrid of Poker and Blackjack. A Sabacc Deck has 76 cards, most of which in four suits of 16 cards numbered one to 16, plus sixteen wildcards in two sets with values that were either negative or (in the case of the Idiot) Zero. The goal of the game is to have a set of three cards who's total as close as possible to, but not over, 23 or -23. If you got 23/-23 (Pure Sabacc) which could only be beaten by an Idiot's Array (One Idiot, a two and a three, thus 23). The stakes are raised every cycle until the cards go down or one player is left standing who gets the pot.

The notable thing about Sabacc that sets it apart from real world card games is that the Cards can change value every turn. A Pure Sabacc can easily become an instant lose 25 and an absolutely lousy hand can become an Idiot's Array. They can be stabilized to fix their value, but everyone knows when you do so. This feature has so far prevented Sabacc from being released in tabletop form as of yet. ''(Of course, there are ways to deal with this, such as simply re-dealing unfixed cards, but never let it be said that nerds will choose practicality over purity.)''

In universe, Han Solo won the Millenium Falcon off Lando in a game of Sabacc.

Pazaak is an older game from an in-universe perspective, similar to Blackjack but its player versus player rather than player versus dealer and also has some aspects of a collectible card game. Goal of the game is to raise cards from the main deck until their total value is 20 or they can also choose to stand if they get close but don't want to risk it. Best out of five wins.

CCG-aspect of Pazaak comes from the sidedeck: both players collect ten cards for their side deck and then randomly take four cards from their side deck to their hand in the beginning of the game. Hand cards are used to either lower or raise the total value: so if the player raises cards from the main deck to the total value of 25, they can prevent dropping out if they have a -5 card or higher in their hand.
Cards which only either raise or lower the value are the most common of the side cards.
More rarer are cards which can be used to both raise and lower the value.
Then there are flip cards, which change certain main deck cards on the table to negative ones. So if the player plays a 2&4 flip card, all 2:s and 4:s on the table become -2:s and -4:s. Flip cards exist in 2&4:s and 3&6:s.
Then there is the double card, which doubles the value of the last played card. So if the player raises a 5 from the main deck, playing the double card would turn it into a 10.
Finally, the rarest side deck card is the tiebreaker, which grants the player a win if the game would otherwise end in a tie.

==Tabletop games for Star Wars==

=== Role-playing Games ===

[[West End Games]] made a Star Wars [[role-playing game]] called [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] AKA '''Star Wars D6'''. Like many West End products, it's a good game with the great misfortune of being published by West End games.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] picked up the license later and made two distinct RPGs based on their [[d20 System]], called [[Star Wars D20]] (imaginatively). Could be fun, but generally broken as hell, much like [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|its parent game]]. It was then utterly revised that into what they called the '''Saga Edition''', which is relatively balanced and pretty good.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars Roleplaying Game|a whole line of Star Wars-themed RPGs]], each one focusing on a specific style of play. You want to play a bunch of scruffy space outlaws (Edge of the Empire), members of the nascent Rebellion (Age of Rebellion), or exiled Jedi Knights (Force and Dedtiny), then they got you covered. Unlike their [[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]] games, which are all ''juuuuust'' different enough from one another to completely buttfuck any attempts at blending, all three gamelines use identical mechanics and are fully cross-compatible. Uses symbol-counting [[dice pool]]s with ludicrously overpriced custom dice.
Like the other RPGs they decided with the retardedly similar name, and thus this one is sometimes called '''Star Wars FFG''' to avoid confusion.

FFG have kept milking the franchise and in summer 2017, decided to [[Necromancer | reanimate]] the [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] with a "30th Year Anniversary Edition" print of the original game. It '''''finally''''' shipped in July 2018 after spending a year in limbo.

=== Card Games ===

The big [[card game]] set in the Star Wars universe is the [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]. It's no longer produced by Decipher, but there is still a sufficiently large player community to organize annual tournaments, rule on cards, and so on. SWCCG was radically different from the norm of card games, being divided into light and dark side cards with different backings, with light and dark always playing against each other. For tournament play a player would need both a light and dark deck.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] made the [[Star Wars Trading Card Game]].

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars: The Card Game]].

Obviously, nobody is capable of creating a Star Wars card game with an interesting name.

Aside from the real, physical, games there was also ''Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game''. It was a real, functioning, card game within the MMO that used all virtual cards. Unfortunately no server emulators have implemented it yet.

=== Miniature Games ===
[[Wizards of the Coast]] did a tabletop battles game imaginatively called Star Wars: Miniatures, based on an extremely dumbed down version of the D&D ruleset. The figures were meant to tie in with the Saga edition RPG, it wasn't terrible on its own, just impossible to collect for competitive play since figures came in random booster packs so you never know what you were getting for what faction. Who could possibly stand for that?

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is producing the [[X-Wing]] miniatures game based on individual starfighter combat (because, let's be honest, that's what ''Star'' Wars is all about). They have also released [[Star Wars: Armada]] which is a larger scale "fleet" combat simulator, using capital ships and squadrons of starfighters.

'''Star Wars: Imperial Assault'''

The latest [[Fantasy Flight Games]] addition to its Star Wars related games is a mix between a miniature board game and a skirmish wargame. It has two play modes:

One for campaign play where 1-4 players control a team of Rebel heroes and another player has the role of the DM, who controls the Imperial forces. The campaign, as the name suggests, focuses on character personalization, xp gain and the like, which you can find in any light RPG-esque (board)game. The main goal is to get a few friends together and casually play through the missions. Think of it as a Star Wars version of the original [[Hero Quest]].

The other play mode is skirmish play, where two players each get to assemble a team of miniatures plus a command deck (cards that have specific effects when played) and play against each other in an open-play scenario. The play area is still very limited to a few game tiles (as in a campaign mission) but players are free to bring whatever they want (with a few limitations of course). The skirmish part of Imperial assault is as close as you can get to an actual Star Wars skirmish wargame, but it is a missed opportunity from Fantasy Flight to create a true skirmish wargame (ala [[Infinity (wargame)|Infinity]]), not based on tiles and so confined spaces. Who knows what they have plans for though...

'''Star Wars Legion'''

And Fantasy Flight have now given us a fully fledged wargame, complete with AT-ST in the first wave. (They're 32mm scale, which means [[Games Workshop|no reusing your Imperial Assault miniatures]].) Legion has an integrated turn system, and the usual FF custom dice and forest worth of dead trees in cards and tokens that will be familiar to X-Wing and Armada players. The miniatures are PVC, reasonably detailed, easy to assemble pieces. A standard battle is 800 points, which could be anywhere from half a dozen to 16 units on the field, with an average army fielding 8-12 units comprising 30-ish models.

=== Board Games ===

The most famous and arguably best one is [[Star Wars: Rebellion]], an asymmetric two-player game that plays through the Original Trilogy in a wargame/worker placement-esque game. The Empire player must expand their already huge military base over the galaxy to build more ships and huge superweapons while searching for the Rebel Base, while the Rebels do their best to bite them in their heel, obscuring their movements and annoying the Empire until they have enough support to overthrow the Empire. As a [[Fantasy Flight Games|FFG]] boardgame, it's filled with a ludicrous amount of bits and pieces (including sweet models of Star Destroyers, Death Stars and Calamari Cruisers), as well as the trademark filled-with-small-exceptions ruleset. It's pretty sweet and still considered one of the best board games of its kind.

=== Card Miniature Games ===

In the late 00's, WizKids produced a short lived construct-able miniatures Star Wars game based on their styrene card system for Pirates of the Spanish Main. Although the game sold well, when NECA bought WizKids from Topps the rights did not transfer and it went out of print.

==Video Games for Star Wars==

To put it bluntly, every game which could possibly have ''Star Wars'' slapped onto it, exists. Flight simulators. Racers. Rail shooters. Doom clones. MMOs. Age of Empires reskins. Hell, there's even a Kinect variety game. Here's a few standouts...

* '''Knights of the Old Republic''': A pair of single player RPGs depicting a Sith war several thousand years before ''A New Hope''. KotOR is widely regarded as the best Star Wars video game ever, and was the framework for BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' series. Of all the Legends stuff, KotOR appears to still be in good standing with Disney since they continue to borrow from it. The sequel by Obsidian was the original skubtastic take on the franchise TLJ wanted to be but failed miserably. Got an MMO simply called "Old Republic" (since you can play as things other than Jedi and Sith) that is the sequel, which had a very rough start but stabilized enough to still survive to this day somehow). Possibly still canon in the Disney continuity since a lot of things get borrowed or referenced from it. Also the only thing in the EU to still receive new content.

* '''Jedi Knight:''' A series that started of as an early FPS named Dark Forces (so early that it was the time when FPS games were still known as [[Doom]]-clones) but Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had the protagonist become a Jedi. The Dark Forces name was dropped in favor of Jedi Knight after this. The series combines surprisingly deep lightsaber combat with standard shooting, though the levels can get very mazy at times. Introduced Kyle Katarn, one of the most popular characters from EU. Unfortunately, there has not been a new game since 2003's ''Jedi Academy'' and likely will never be thanks to Disney.

* '''Republic Commando''': An FPS that has the player command a squad of commandos. Its a great shooter but unfortunately, it never received a sequel and to make things worse, ended on a cliffhanger. The second act of the game, set entirely on a drifting Acclamator-class assault ship is particularly memorable and highly atmospheric. If one can look past outdated graphics, its worth trying out for anyone who wants a good FPS experience.

* '''Empire at War''': Made by the original developers of [[Command and Conquer]], it is the most notable strategy game to have come out of Star Wars. Notable for featuring three different modes of play: ground battles, space battles and galactic conquest map. Though ground battles are a bit meh, the space battles are great and the galactic conquest is certainly more interesting than only playing random skirmish matches. Even though its over 10 years old, it has a very active modding community. Republic at War, which changes the games Galactic Civil War setting to Clone Wars and Thrawns Revenge, set much further into the Galactic Civil War than portrayed in the films, are particularly great. There is also a remake mod in the works, aiming to bring the game up to modern standards in terms of visuals, sound and UI and the results do look good. Unfortunately, no great 40k mod.

* '''Star Wars Galaxies''': An early MMO, launched after ''Everquest'' but before ''WoW''. Galaxies is noteworthy for making force powers a prestige achievement requiring enormous in-game effort to unlock. The first expansion pack added a subgame that's a pretty solid flight game in its own right and the game eventually added an original, fully playable, trading card game that sadly has not yet been implemented in any simulator. Then ''World of Warcraft'' hit, Sony panicked and made Jedi a starting class and replaced the skill system with massive level grind, and offered refunds to the raging army of neckbeards. Subscription numbers tanked and never recovered. It would effectively be replaced by ''The Old Republic'', an MMO using the acclaimed KotOR setting. Like most "dead" MMOs that people loved it still lives on through illegal private servers (don't worry, the guys providing it would get busted, not people playing on it).

* '''X-Wing (and TIE Fighter)''': A series of ''Wing Commander'' clones released in the 90's. While badly dated today, they were the best fighter sims of their time, and if you can get past the highly primitive graphics some people still consider them to be the best to this day. Interestingly, TIE Fighter is largely seen as the best of the series while the N64 era Rogue Squadron and Shadows Of The Empire games are seen as being far more visually modern but largely inferior sequels. Did we mention you had to use a flight stick controller basically made for these games to really do well at these?

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2005)''': Not to be confused with the one released by EA in 2017. Solid game from the new-defunct Pandemic studio (fuck you, EA) in 2005 told from the perspective of a clone trooper that survived all the way up to the battle of Hoth, with a very down to earth boots on the ground approach. Also, just being thrown into random matches as a soldier because fun. Despite some issues, it remains the high point of the Battlefront series as well as the entire PS2 era, and on PC still has fans via an active modding community to this day. There is of course also the original one but the second one pretty much completely overshadowed it.

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)''': The one by EA. You've probably heard everything important. An absolute mess at launch due to its lootbox-heavy progression system, so much so that it started discussion even on government level about lootboxes that continues to this day. A comment by EA that became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Yet despite all this, two years later, the game is arguably one of the best Star Wars experiences one can have and an Anakin-level redemption story. Like the previous Battlefront II, it completely overshadowed its predecessor.

* '''Jedi: Fallen Order''': It took them years but finally, EA managed to deliver a Star Wars game that is great on launch without cramming it with e-transactions. Its plot focuses on an unfortunate Jedi renegade between ''Revenge'' and ''A New Hope'' who's on the hunt for a hidden database that might document all the Force-sensitive individuals in the galaxy. A game inspired primarily by games such as Dark Souls and Uncharted, its a great action-adventure game in its own right and a must-play for any Star Wars fan.

* '''Monopoly Star Wars''': Its Star Wars Monopoly. With 90's FMV that plays for every square you land on. On floppy disks. Considered fucking amazing at the time, its too strange and tabletop to not mention. Also one of the last pre-Prequel things released.

* '''Super Star Wars''': A heavily modified retelling of the original trilogy (what, you don't remember how Luke chased down the Sandcrawler and murdered all the Jawas as well as their giant rat god in order to rescue R2-D2?) that was one of the ways to say "hard as fuck" by namedropping a game prior to Dark Souls existing. Amusing for the insanity of the added content in order to make a platformer sidescrolling beat'em'up as well as how neckbeardy you have to be to punish yourself trying to beat it without cheating.

* '''Star Wars: Yoda Stories''': A game geared for kids, released the same year as Monopoly above. Players play as Luke sometime after Empire Strikes Back, although an odd alternate version where Han sometimes is free from carbonite and Boba Fett and sometimes is not. They are assigned a quest by Yoda which requires them to traverse one or more procedurally generated planets doing whatever odd crap Yoda felt was necessary, including sometimes fighting Vader. Recieved middling scores as a PC release, with some individuals HATING the game and using it as a benchmark for how much they hate something when comparing the two, although to be fair that is because distributors tried to sell it like a full game when in reality its supposed to just be freebie software that came with other purchases and was meant to go with Solitaire and space pinball as default games on a computer to waste time with. It has lapsed into obscurity thanks to even those reviewers largely being forgotten on the modern internet. Noteworthy for being played on a grid with simultaneous turn-based movement with all enemies and NPCs on a screen, feeling very much like a tabletop game at times. A simple puzzle game, where getting blocked in a corner without enough space to pass the time by an idiot NPC is more dangerous than any foe.

*'''Shadows of the Empire''': Made on the Nintendo 64 and Windows PC, you play as Dash Rendar, a scoundrel in a ship like Han Solo working for the Rebellion. Takes place during Episode V as a side story. Despite being much beloved by fans for years and years, it's sadly not aged well thanks to the rather peculiar control scheme of the N64 and the graphics not having aged like cheap cheese in the sun. Main enemy of the game is a xeno named Xisor who is just a real uppity crime boss (and apparently a prince). This game has an absolute great opening first part where you're flying in a Snowspeeder on Hoth killing Imperials left and right while trying to use the cables to crash the AT-ATs like in the movie. After that the game begins to kinda just carry on with awkward controls.

==Assorted list of Awesome From Star Wars==
* Fucking ''[[Lightsaber|Lightsabers!]]''
* The fucking [[Approved music|OST]]
* What is likely the greatest duel in cinematic history, that takes place on a [[Death World|lava planet.]]
* Deathly Stormtroopers, heroic Clonetroopers or sinister First Order troopers; whatever they're called, stormtroopers are awesome!
* Darth Vader whenever he gets a speaking line or to murder rebel scum - that is to say, all the time.
* Darth Maul in both The Phantom Menace and TCW.
* Lightsaber Rifles
* The entirety of the Umbara campaign, where <s>Imperial Guardsmen</s> Clone Troopers die in the dozens attempting to win some godforsaken planet, earning them balls of titanium that make the guard look ba- {{BLAM| '''*BLAM*''' Heresy!}}
* 97% of the Creatures.
* 98% of the Starfighter designs.
* Costumes that mix about every possible inspiration, Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese, Ancient Greece and Rome, Elizabethan, Moebius or Pulp Sci-Fi from the 60's, giving the whole series a distinctive style and gives Padme Amidala an excuse to show off with all her dresses.
* Boba and Jango Fett and the rest of the Mandalorians.
* KOTOR (both games) plot making you think this shit is actually logical and has so much philosophical background. One of the creepiest depictions of the Universe. Everything is brutal, with big vibrating knives, blood, those machines for Sith snuff movies, more blood, bastards, badass bastards and so on. Everything while somebody is talking with you about existence.
* Our saviour Lord Revan. He's like if [[Horus|fucking Horus]] just became [[Big Bad Evil Guy|fucking bad]] (but not that [[Erebus|bad]]) to fucking destroy the [[Chaos Gods|Dark Gods]] so he can solve his daddy issues.
**but he's more virile, deadly, powerful, charismatic and cool.
* Lightsabers.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi.
* The High Ground.
* TIE fighters. They have the most distinctive scream of any fighter in cinematic history that just yells "I'm evil!". Tell me I'm wrong. I'll wait.
** The fact that they managed to do that using what is essentially a shitty visual pun.
* Most of Episode 3.
* The entirety of Anakin's story, especially when you add the Clone Wars and prequels. While you're at it, watch CinemaWins' perspective on it the series.
* Admiral Ackbar the Memeable!
* Palpatine getting into some Tzeentchian-level scheming and backstabbing in order to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic.
* Grand Admiral Thrawn: So awesome that he rose to a high rank in the anthropocentric Empire despite being an alien and was one of the first (and rare few) things to be imported straight from Legends to Disney.
* Imperial Pilots get a mention, seeing as they fly literal garbage fighters against superior rebel fighters. By garbage, we mean that even the Imperium have better fighter designs than these guys. At least Imperial fighters conserve the life of the fucking pilot.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi again.
* Princess, later Senator Leia Organa; the original badass-yet-hot boss lady in space. Ends up leading two separate, successful underground freedom movements against impossible odds. Did we mention she's a Jedi in both canons?
* Han Solo, who is so badass that hot Leia falls in love. He has the smuggler's best friend, a Wookie, who is also the worst opponent you can face in a [[Chess|Dejarik match]].
* Just... Star Destroyers. When you see a huge, imposing warship from an evil Empire, this is the granddaddy they all look up to.
* Oh, did we mention the lightsabers ?

== See Also: ==
* ''[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/ Darths & Droids]'': A webcomic, made using photo-stills of the ''Star Wars'' movies to tell a story about gamers blundering through each of the six movies in sequence... though not quite exactly how you might expect. Think ''DM of the Rings'' in overall visual style, though unlike ''DM of the Rings'', ''Darths & Droids'' features several heavy twists on the actual events of the films, subplots about the players and their lives outside the game alongside the campaign, and a better overall quality of gamer.
* "[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html/ Endor Holocaust]": An excellent example of the [[skub]] Star Wars can create. Rebuttal: "[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/fanart/endortruth20040810.pdf Endor Rebuttal]"
*[[Timothy Zahn]]
*[[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]]
*[[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*[[Star Wars:Resistance]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

Star Wars

2020-03-13T22:48:58Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* Disney Canon */

{{Star Wars}}
[[File:Star-Wars-Logo (1).jpg|center|500px|]]

{{Topquote|A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....|Star Wars opening text}}
'''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D0ZQPqeJkk/ Star Wars]''' is one of, if not ''the'', most influential media franchises of modern times, let alone its effect on science-fiction and fantasy. Indeed, among [[/tg/|nerddom]], it is challenged by only a few others, like [[Star Trek]] and [[The Lord of the Rings]].

The incredibly ardent fandom is spread worldwide and has a strong presence in popular culture. Many of the characters, like Darth Vader and Yoda, are iconic even to the general public. John Williams' score for the original trilogy is probably the best-known film score of all time. The universe has spawned numerous video games, hundreds of novels, multiple TV shows, one of the largest merchandising franchises ever, and, relevant to /tg/, a whole bunch of board, card, and roleplaying games.

It is also the current leading world source of [[Skub]].

==The Basic Concept==
Star Wars was originally a series of epic science-fantasy "space operas" that roughly followed the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. They're set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," [Note: this makes the entire series a fairy tale] where a mysterious life force called (reasonably enough) the Force permeates everything. This, in turn, can be wielded by certain people, giving them pseudo-magical abilities; thank the Emperor (no, the other one) there were no Commissars in that universe. Those who use it for good become mystical, selfless warrior monks called Jedi, whereas those who use it for evil are ruthless, self-serving bastards called Sith. However, the Force must always be in balance, so any time the Sith arise to cause imbalance, the Jedi have to pull together and take them out to restore the natural order.

The so-called Original Trilogy (made up of films IV through VI, released from 1977 to 1983) followed a young man named Luke Skywalker who becomes a Jedi and re-balances the Force. Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance is fighting to end the oppressive Galactic Empire, which is secretly led by the Sith. Luke and his Rebel companions eventually defeat the evil Emperor Palpatine, but along the way they discover that his lieutenant, Darth Vader, is actually Luke's father. A financial, critical, popular and cultural H-bomb, these movies are basically the filter through which Generation X perceives the world... for better or worse.

The so-called Prequel Trilogy (made up of films I through III, released from 1999 to 2005) explained how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and how the Galactic Empire was established. This involves a lot of convoluted politicking in the Republic, which is then torn apart in the Clone Wars, where the Republic (with an army of clones led by the Jedi) fights against the Confederacy (with an army of robots led by [[Necrons|General Grievous]] and secretly controlled by the Sith). It was not as well received as the first trilogy, for reasons we'll talk about below.

There's also a so-called Sequel Trilogy (made up of film VII and presumably films VIII and IX), which started in 2015 and picked up the story some three decades after the Emperor's defeat with a new generation of heroes taking on the remains of the evil Empire, which is a group of extremist former Imperials calling themselves the First Order. However, Episode VII aka ''The Force Awakens'', was directed by J.J. Abrams, who's mostly known for the [[skub|skubtastic]] [[Star Trek]] reboot, while Episode VIII was written and directed by Ryan Johnson who was a young director known for plot twists and genre experimentation on a handful of movies and television episodes that openly said he wanted to "subvert expectations" and make half of viewers dislike his work, then got pissed when half of them disliked his work. The result managed to fracture the Star Wars fanbase over issues of dull rehashing for VII and a whole laundry list of reasons for VIII (ranging from small ones such as it being too different, to major issues like half the movie being filler), as well as those who still enjoyed them and very little common ground between the three groups.

Finally, there are the so-called Anthology movies, standalone one-shots involving characters and plotlines that aren't a part of the main "Saga" films, except they kind of are. The first, Rogue One (2016), is an immediate prequel to Episode IV that follows those Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans. The second film follows a young Han Solo and pals Chewie and Lando. A third rumored one follows Boba Fett.

There are also three separate TV series. The first one, ''Clone Wars'', was based on traditional animation, whereas the later one, '''''The''' Clone Wars'', was a weird 3D animation. They're both pretty good. There was also a terrible theatrical release that was basically just an advertisement for ''The Clone Wars'', but, since it's even worse than the Prequel Trilogy (hint: babysitting Jabba the Hutt's kid), nobody talks about it much. The third series is Disney's ''"Rebels"'' which is set between Episodes III-IV and it takes itself far less seriously than Clone Wars did, and is more of a homage to the original trilogy since not every character in the series is the owner of a lightsaber nor are they constantly talking about grown-up politics, senators and trade embargoes... pretty much the things that clogged up the plot of the prequel trilogy.

And then there's the whole Expanded Universe, which covers pretty much everything not covered by the films, like the Old Republic (set thousands of years before the prequel trilogy, when there were a hell of a lot more Sith and Jedi around) and the New Republic (set immediately after the original trilogy, explaining what became of all the characters. It could also reach 40k levels of grimdark with races like the [[Dark Eldar|Yuuzhan]] [[Tyranids|Vong]] characters like [[Vampire|Darth Nihilus]] and beings like [[Old Ones|Abeloth]].

The EU is no longer considered in the main canon of the films and TV series, due to the new sequel trilogy which does not follow EU, the reason for this being, according to Disney, that following EU would restrict their creative freedom. The reaction to this was, well, [[skub|mixed, for lack of a better word.]] They've since noted that they'll slot ''some'' of it in on a case-by-case basis, but the canon is in a highly fluid state at the moment. EU is now officially called Star Wars Legends, though most fans still refer to it as EU.

==Why is it so popular?==

Star Wars is as accessible as science fiction gets. It doesn't require extensive knowledge of a fictional world (a la ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' or ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'') or cultural background (as ''[[Star Trek]]'' sometimes does) to make sense. Those elements are present for those who want them, but they largely stay in the (very rich and vibrant) background. It has well-shot action and good ''enough'' dialogue to make it interesting for both kids and adults (as well as allowing parents who grew up with it to watch it with their children, thereby hooking the next generation of viewers). It has simple, good-vs.-evil themes that resonate with almost anyone, anywhere, at any time. The science fiction elements are generally handled well if you don't obsess over making science fiction realistic and hard. It's a prime gateway drug for sci-fi which still holds up to the experienced eye, [[Isaac Asimov]] saw and rather enjoyed the films. All in Fourteen hours of cinema, plus optional sides for those who want it.

There's a ton of merchandise that is, of course, really cool. Also, given it's crossed over into the mainstream, many people feel comfortable being part of the community without feeling judged as "nerds" (as they might with ''Lord of the Rings'', ''D&D'', ''Star Trek'', ''Warhammer'', etc.).

Again, they roughly follow the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. If you think about it, 6 of the 9 films can be summarized as: hero begins his journey under the tutelage of a wise (more or less) man, they encounter a threat which has captured/enslaved a princess/girl, who was in one way or another connected to an important secret (usually a superweapon but could be the identity of a political figure or the location of someone); the heroes save the princess/girl but someone dies tragically in a battle against the villain while someone else is blowing up a space station or a spaceship afterwards they are happy, they celebrate and mourn the loss of the poor bloke who died.

Additionally, the first film can be summarized as a samurai and a gunslinger team up to save a princess from Nazis in space. That is multiple cinematic genres at once, following the style of the epic myth.

==Setting==
Due to article bloat, [[Star Wars Setting]] is now its own page.

==The rise of the original trilogy==

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away....etc etc you all know the lines.

A man called George Lucas had the idea to create a series of epic sci-fi space operas that would become so successful that Disney would take notice and give it the franchise fluttering eye lashes, trying to seduce it.

They would be called... ''Flash Gordon''.

Unfortunately for Georgie boy, and fortunately for modern nerddom, Dino de Laurentiis already owned ''Flash Gordon'', and were busy making their own, hilariously eighties version, so he said, screw it, I'll make my own!

He decided to start with the fourth movie in the series he envisioned, for at the time he didn't have the special effects to create the first three to the standard he wanted, and/or he just kinda made up the first movie as he went along (drawing heavily on Akira Kurosawa's seminal samurai action film, ''Hidden Fortress'' in the process as well as the book [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces''], a complex 1949 Joseph Campbell analysis of the various mythologies of human history all boiled down into the basic archtypes and elements required in heroic myth). So Episode Four ''A New Hope'' was created (simply titled ''Star Wars'' at the time) and it is not an exaggeration to say it changed the face of sci-fi and general moviemaking forever, bringing a new era of special effects and imagination to cinema and changing the lives of many who would go onto to become dedicated fan boys.

Originally, the studio had forced Lucas to take ever-increasing paycuts for what they were sure was going to be a flop, and only let him keep merchandising rights. However, whatever his flaws, George Lucas was a man of vision. Having helped pioneer the summer blockbuster, he went on to do the same to ginormous piles of movie-tie-in memorabilia. His production company, Lucasfilm ended up rolling in dosh, and with Episode Five ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and Episode Six ''The Return of the Jedi'', the legend of Star Wars and its place in cultural history was assured.

tl;dr: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4w7ChpuaM Pretty much this.]

==The coming of the prequel trilogy==
With the year 2000 coming, George Lucas felt that special effects technology had reached the level he wanted and began to create the first three movies in the star wars story he had envisioned. (As a side-note, he also made some touch-ups to the three original films, re-mastering them with special effects and a couple of extra scenes that weren't doable with the eighties' animatronics. But those were mostly accepted/shrugged away since they didn't deeply modify anything.)

The hype for the movies was immense.

And then the first movie, Episode One ''The Phantom Menace'' came out.....and there was nerd rage beyond expectation.

Part of the problem was that the immense expectations of the fandom had grown until anything less-than-perfect simply would not do, so perhaps that is somewhat to blame for the reaction to the prequel trilogy. In a vacuum one has to admit that they aren't completely ''[[Twilight|terrible films]]'' .

Episode Two ''Attack of the Clones'' and Episode Three ''Revenge of the Sith'' followed after a few years each and didn't garner nearly as much hatred, though fans complained they didn't match the greatness of the original trilogy, more concerned with flashy action and effects than competent story-telling; but hooo-boy did it deliver in flashy action, with laser armed [[MI-24 Hind|MI-24's]] full of <s>storm</s>troopers extracting jedi from a coliseum full of shooty killbots.

''Revenge of the Sith'' did, however, receive higher ratings than ''Return of the Jedi'', and is generally seen as the best and most-complete of the three prequel films as a story. Unusually the novelization alters some details and is considered a legitimately good book on its own merits.

What was generally more well received (despite a rocky start with a two hour pilot being pressed into service as a movie and an art style that took some time to gel) during this time for Star Wars was the Clone Wars animated series (both the traditionally-animated ''Clone Wars'' and the later seasons of the CGI show '''''The''' Clone Wars'', the latter which most everyone agrees is what the prequels should have been), following the war between the Republic and the Confederacy that sprung up during the time between the second and third of the prequels.

It'd be ''really'' hard to find a group of movies more skubtastic than the prequel trilogy, and saying a good or bad thing about it in front of the wrong crowd's sure to provoke huge amounts of nerdrage. In defense of the prequel trilogy's sins, they did at least do their own thing. Because of how much money the original trilogy made, practically every form of media in the 80s and 90s aped it to some form or another, and instead of falling back on the same old shit the prequels branched out and tried to get out of the franchise's comfort zone a bit. While a lot of it sucked, it blazed a trail for better writers to follow and helped liven up the universe by showing us the galaxy beyond fuckhueg spaceships and faux-Western shitholes like Tatooine. And all but the most [[Neckbeard|diehard OT purists]] can get behind shit like Naboo architecture, the Clone Army and Mace "The Ace" Windu. From a story perspective the worst sin of the prequels was demystifying the force, and subsequent works have largely swept that detail under the carpet.

==Disney and the sequel trilogy==

Finally, all the efforts by Disney to woo George Lucas paid off and in 2012 Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise for 4 billion dollars and immediately announced they would produce a new trilogy of films set after the original trilogy.

Expectations were almost as high as the private fears of the fans. Bringing on the creative talent behind the [[skub|skubtastic]] ''[[Star Trek]]'' reboot was equally... well, [[skub|take a wild guess]].

For sake of sanity, these section have been condensed. Read at your own peril.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 7: The Mouse Awakens===
''Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens'' debuted in December of 2015, and reception was what you would expect: the film was immediately a massive success from a monetary standpoint as everyone ([[China|almost]]) everywhere rushed to the theaters in response to the hype, with children engaging in as many repeat viewings as their parent's money could allow as fans did the same thing with their own. It has become a financial hit with the general public and a (critically) generally well-reviewed piece, with decent cinematography, special effects, technical stuff, etc. It also went on to become the third biggest financial success in film history (at the time), when not adjusted for inflation.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Fan response was a good deal more mixed. Many criticize the plot for rehashing Episode IV, without doing anything to establish its own identity and claim that it had a bland main character, [[Mary Sue|who had too many abilities]] whereas others find the replication of ''Star Wars'' feel an acceptable trade and praise it for being a decent action film, [[skub|and claim the lead doesn't outdo any of the previous main characters]].

Some would argue that by rehashing the original trilogy it basically nullified the accomplishments of the original crew; the Empire's still around, they've got yet another superweapon, Han & Leia split up, Luke failed to rebuild the Jedi, etc. Other fans praised it simply for being a new Star Wars that was better than the prequel trilogy (expectations were lowered due to those, to be honest). Some see poor storytelling when there was no proper showing of what went on in the galaxy 3 decades since Palpatine died, and not explaining what caused big character changes like why Han returned to his old ways or Luke ran from his friends was critical. Other say this is going to be explained in the next film and people should keep their curiosity. Some argue even with their superweapon, none of the villains feel threatening. Others argue the incompetence of the main villain is a fresh change and the point of the plot will be to see him change, to be more competent, or even learn to become good.

Overall, those against argued JJ Abrams' mystery box approach may do well for a TV series but does not mesh with films that take years to make. Defendants held the position that fans should wait to see whether the next film will do anything with the unexplained plot points.

Coincidentally, when Hamill and Fisher were originally approached by Disney to reprise their roles as Luke and Leia, they ''didn't want to do it'' right from the start. But, they didn't want to give an out-and-out "no" answer either, so they told Disney they'd return if Harrison Ford agreed to return as Han Solo as well. Knowing how much Ford ''hated'' Solo, Hamill and Fisher figured they were safe, until Disney irresistibly sweetened the deal for Ford by agreeing to kill off his character, thus forcing a reluctant Hamill and Fisher to make good on their deal... [[skub|only for the three characters to never appear on the screen at the same time.]] To be fair, Hamill has a history of saying he won’t do something only to immediately agree like he’s making a standard sitcom gag in real life, even if that usually just applies to still voicing the Joker in Batman media.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars Rebels===
Disney also released their own CGI series: ''Star Wars: Rebels'', which is actually pretty ok (considering that it airs on Disney XD, it should be no surprise that they've toned down the graphic depictions of gratuitous violence, much to the chagrin of [[Neckbeards|those who love overly gory deaths]]). It focuses less on the Jedi that have come to dominate the franchise and more on the "boots on the ground" experience of the average characters, and while the show started slow and small, the plot gained momentum as the series progressed, especially after the first season.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Rebel movement starts to grow, several characters return from ''The Clone Wars'', and the enemies the main characters have to face steadily get darker and more dangerous as more of the Empire’s attention gets attracted. When Darth Vader gets involved (played by none other than [[Awesome|James Earl Jones himself]]) he immediately proceeds to [[Awesome|open a 24-pack of unstoppable whoop-ass on the rebel scum]]. The return of Maul resulted in three character deaths (possibly four), the crippling of one main character with another well on his way down the dark side, and to top it all off Maul himself was on the loose once again. Things did not turn out so well [[Grimdark|last time that happened]], so expect the body count to rise, especially with [[Creed|Grand Admiral Thrawn]] now also coming onto the scene. The show also continues the trend set by ''The Clone Wars'' in making the Force mystical again, though whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how you felt about the <s>bullshit</s> <s>scientific</s> [[Skub|skubtastic]] midichlorian explanation of the Prequels. The animation is on point with ''The Clone Wars'', which considering it's Disney should surprise less than nobody. Oh, and Steve Blum voices one of the main characters. However, it is also noted that Star Wars Rebels may indeed have [[Grimdark|dark ending]]. Which, to a degree, it did. An important character dies, and his padawan flees into the unknown regions, leaving us with two other characters to go look for him after the second Death Star blows up.

[[Skub|The way that Filoni (the creator of Rebels and The Clone Wars) has handled the Mandalorians, a fan-favorite warrior-culture based upon the Scots and Vikings, has either been met with praise from those who despised Traviss and her overpowering of said culture, or utter RAGE that he turned many of them into either pacifist morons or bloodthirsty barbarians- usually that particular criticism comes from the Traviss fanboys]]. Do take note, however, that the old ways for the Mandalorians are making their way back into canon, such as the language, the emphasis on martial honor, and the decentralized nature of their government.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars: Rogue One===
December of 2016 brought us the first standalone Star Wars movie, "Rogue One", showing the theft of the original Death Star plans.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

While "Rogue One" can be justly criticized for lacking in character development, that was basically mandated by being set just before another movie whose actors were now 40 years too old to reprise their previous roles. The cast of the movie includes almost no one who appears in Episode IV, and the few familiar faces who do appear show up as cameos. (Fair warning: spoilers)

Accordingly, every main character dies by the end. It still manages to pack quite a lot of [[awesome]] into the movie, with Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk and Darth Vader all used to great effect. Rogue One also answers several questions, plugs several plot holes, and just generally makes A New Hope make a lot more sense in retrospect. (No wonder Vader wasn't impressed when Leia claimed to be on a "diplomatic mission.") It also has the distinctions of being the only Star Wars movie to focus on regular soldiers instead of Jedi, and being more like the original Star Wars than any of the sequels, including the other two of the main trilogy. (The original, back before it was "A New Hope", was a genre mashup of samurai + gunslinger rescue princess from space Nazis, then team up for a World War II dogfight. This one is wuxia cast + heist crew do a heist in a WWII trench warfare war zone. There's surprisingly little 'War' in Star Wars.) Much, much [[Skub]] still exists of course, since no Star Wars movie will ever please all the neckbeards but out of the five post-Disney Star Wars movies released so far, this one is definitely the least divisive and arguably the best of the bunch.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===Episode 8: The Last Royalty Check (aka zomg Luke dies!)===
On December 14 2017, ''Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi'' was released world wide. The critical reception was [[Bullshit|extremely positive]], with many critics considering it the best movie in the series since The Empire Strikes Back. The fan reception has been a great deal more negative and [[Skub|mixed]], and a number of fans are convinced that Disney leaned on media outlets to shill the new movie or else. If you have watched the Empire Strikes Back, you ''WILL'' be [[Rage|disappointed at best]], if you want to see a Star Wars film that would finally expand the characters of Kylo Ren and Rey, you ''WILL'' be satisfied and disappointed at the same time, if you want to watch the film because it is the last film starring the great and wonderful Carrie Fisher, you ''WILL'' feel hollow and sad inside, and if you came to see a pair of lightsaber-wielding punks involved in one of the [[Skub|greatest or worst lightsaber battles of the franchise, you ''WILL'' be pleased or horribly disappointed]]. The Last Jedi is seen as one of the most divisive films in the franchise by the fandom, [[FAIL|which is one hell of an achievement]] considering other films.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The complaints about The Last Jedi are many: the treatment of Luke (which even his actor, Mark Hamill, hated, to the point that he has no interest in playing Luke again), Leia's Superman asspull, Finn's plot arc that serves practically zero purpose and has him undergo the same character arc as the last movie, the forced humor, the complete disregard for established [[fluff]], disregard for even the most basic laws of physics, the fact that the central conflict is essentially the same as the one in the originals right down to the last stand ripped straight out of ''Empire'', the PC bullshit (a hipster admiral who the plot always treats as being in the right despite killing 90% of the Resistance, the Gilded Age planet arc that [[Namek|sucks up a third of the movie to no benefit,]] Rose expressing her desire to get BLACKED with a horrendous and forced #LoveTrumpsHate one-liner in the final act) added solely to virtue-signal and the whole thing being basically a 2,5h screed against the franchise it belongs to and the culture which spawned it.

Fans have also criticized the movie for dropping or discarding major plot points from TFA and repeatedly invoking Shamalamadingdong-tier plot twists for cheap gotchas that are somehow less interesting than the recycled cliches they play off of. Director Rian Johnson has responded by shitting on said critics and trying to defend the film on social media like something out of an ED or RW article. (Important note: George Lucas never tried to defend the prequels, despite the huge backlash at the time, and he agreed with fans that [[C.S Goto|The Star Wars Holiday Special]] was an abomination.) It later came out that Johnson had not been given any kind of roadmap beyond Lucas' old and unfinished concept scripts and was not allowed to see what Abrams had done until TLJ was too far into production to write in most of the previous movie's plot points, which makes the fail Disney's fault just as much as it is Johnson's. Except we also know that he had at least a modicum of influence over the ending of TFA, so they must have talked on at least some degree. As with TFA Lucasfilm has tried to paper over the holes with tie-in material, and just like TFA the fans recognize the damage control.

The Last Jedi has without a doubt torn the fanbase apart in ways even the prequels didn't come close to, with many fans declaring that they have dropped the sequel trilogy. Even Star Wars' famous merchandising has taken a mauling, as [[/toy/]] giggles at Rose Tico and General Hux figures warming shelves while new product shipments go straight from the transport case to the clearance bin.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg_FoEy8T_A I'm Solo, Han Solo, Han Solo]===
On May 25th 2018, the 41st anniversary of the franchise, ''Solo: A Star Wars Story'' was released. The general consensus seems to be that it is the most average film in the series. At the very least, most people agree that it is at least better than The Last Jedi (if barely) and the backlash from that movie can be felt even in Solo: many fans have chosen to boycott the movie. Even before release, many fans had derided the whole affair as unnecessary: no one was really asking for a Han Solo origin movie, particularly one without Harrison Ford. Han Solo's entire life history had already been explored thoroughly in EU novels and comics, so the movie could only be a retread or a retcon, both things most fanbases tend to disapprove of.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Whether it is because of this boycott or not, [[Not as planned|something no one expected happened:]] ''Solo'' was a box office bomb. Its opening weekend performed way below expectations and as of this writing, it has only made half of the money it needs for it to break even. Disney still continued to labor under the delusion that China would save their bottom line regardless of the fact that Star Wars has never been popular in China.

So what is it like? Well, rather than being a space opera like the other films, this is a space Western. Rather than being about large-scale battles and saving the galaxy from tyranny, it's about heists and the galactic underworld. (Except for the Mimban sequence, which you'd swear was lifted from a live-action Imperial Guard movie.) It's essentially Disney's reboot/retcon of the old EU Han Solo novels, taking things that were mentioned offhand in the original trilogy (like how Han did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs) and making that the subject of an entire movie. The film was perhaps cursed from the beginning due to its [[Fail|troubled production.]] How troubled? The lead needed an acting coach to get through his shoots (Han may have walked away with the Falcon, but Danny Glover's Lando stole the spotlight every time) and 70% of the movie had to be reshot by a different director due to [[Butthurt|creative differences]] between Lucasfilm and the original directors.

The fail only compounded when it premiered and fans got to see what those "creative differences" may have wrought: the writing staff started spewing bullshit to the press about Lando being "pansexual" with no precedent in any Star Wars production including ''Solo'', the film's tone is a schizophrenic nightmare to the last-minute reshoots and Han's sidekick for most of the movie is [[What|a self-built female droid social justice warrior]] named [[/v/|L3-37]]. Audiences ''cheered and applauded'' when that <s>man</s>human-hating self-insert character finally fucking died. Perhaps the most damning sin is that these are the movie's only notable qualities: take them away and you're left with a movie that would make you think "Huh, that was okay," and then never think about it again for the rest of your life, were it not for the crippling disappointment of seeing one of the most beloved franchises in the world fall so far. Between the boycotts, the mediocrity of the movie itself, and [https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Gawker certain news outlets] claiming that the driving force behind said boycotts was [[/pol/]], ''Solo'' cratered so badly that [[Exterminatus|all non-''Episode 9'' Star Wars movies were for a short time shelved indefinitely, and the only side-movie still being worked on is the obligatory Boba Fett origin movie, which is more likely to sell tickets based on the name alone.]] Incidentally, one of the writers picked by Lucasfilm to handle ''Solo'''s tie-in content, Cavan Scott, has been hired by [[Games Workshop]] for the [[Warhammer Adventures]] series.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker (aka Plan Palpa-Nine from Outer Space)===
Your opinion of this movie is very easy to predict based on what you thought of the others; if you found The Last Jedi to be "refreshing", you'll absolutely HATE this one. If you hate all Disney content aside from ''maybe'' The Mandalorian, you'll hate this one as much as the others. If you absolutely detested The Last Jedi but have mixed opinions of the rest, you'll probably consider this to be the best of the new movies to varying degrees of actual enthusiasm. The movie largely undoes or ignores swathes of the previous one.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

After finishing shooting, the film was shown to test audiences (which JJ Abrams lied never happened). The film was extremely poorly received, one of many reasons being because it had [[Mary Sue|Rey curb-stomping Palpatine by herself in the final battle]] (test audiences reportedly either laughing at the film or had to be stopped from walking out of the test screenings). The poor showing made (then) Disney CEO Bob Iger - who was overseeing the screening - furious, and he immediately ordered the film to be reshot. The resulting reshoots were so extensive, [http://archive.ph/RLj94 they spanned months and the film didn't have a final edit till December 2019, the month of release], causing trailers to be so desperate for footage that wouldn't be cut they had to fill half the length with footage from prior films and stuff used in prior trailers. Further complicating matters was that the ''very stupid'' plot was leaked months before release. Despite extensive denials from Disney and media outlets, the leaks were proven correct by getting then unrevealed names and plot objects right. Camera leaks the week before release showed very little of the fantastically stupid content leaked months beforehand was changed, only minor details.

Before reading on, be aware that Rey and Kylo are no longer movie-type Force users, they have been changed to video game characters. Like KOTOR and Jedi Academy type where you just get powers by killing enough dudes. None of the powers are new to the franchise, but have been rarely seen and in some cases never before have in movies. You should also know that unlike the first Visual Dictionary that mostly just gave little prop trivia and plot hooks for other works, and the second which was mostly irrelevant until it gets referenced in a decade or two, the final Visual Dictionary is damn near required reading (this shit will get a "VD" to indicate it) since a lot of explanations were cut in the reshoots and recuts. Like for example the connection between Rey and Kylo is a "Force Dyad", basically one soul in the Force that inhabits two bodies (setting up a bit of a snarl what happens when one dies and not the other, and implying the personality is mostly in the brain which is why they can have unique experiences, but whatever) and warps space/time. This is why Rey was inexplicably powerful and knew how to do shit instinctively, because Kylo's training passed onto her, and likewise her nonstop playing with X-Wing training sims as a child made him a badass pilot. Dyads used to be far more common in the KOTOR era, and were apparently the inspiration for the Sith Rule Of Two. This is never mentioned in the final cut of the film, but leaks show it was in one of the earlier ones.

The movie pressed on with breakneck speed that doesn't have time for musical interludes or wipe transitions, the opening crawl informing you that Palpatine has somehow returned and sent a message to the galaxy with the Resistance trying to rebuild and gather information, Rey being trained by Leia on the planet Ajan Kloss (AKA not!Yavin #2, VD) after repairing Anakin's lightsaber (VD) who had received partial training from Luke before stopping for reasons explained later in the movie and supplementing the rest with her pouring over the Jedi texts, and Kylo Ren trying to find Palpatine because his existence is a threat to his rule. The movie takes a lot of inspiration from KOTOR era lore with Ren finding a Sith McGuffin Holocron-type navigation device on Mustafar (VD) showing him the secret planet of the Sith (not Korriban/Pesegam/Moraband, this one is a planet in a red nebula that is under constant lightning storms called Exegol). There he finds a MASSIVE Sith cult that has kept itself secret and managed to not only build a fucking massive fleet of Star Destroyers equipped with planetkiller guns like something straight out of the old canon, but divisions of Stormtroopers, technicians, and officers to fill them along with the typical cultists in robes who administer to keeping Palpatine alive and seeing to his Sith alchemy shit...which includes tanks containing multiple clones of Snoke, revealing the guy was literally born looking like that with a manufactured backstory all so Palpatine could use him as a puppet to create the First Order (which is almost a meta commentary about the backstory controversy).

Kylo is offered the chance to be the new Emperor by Palpatine, who is a corpse kept barely alive through methods some would consider... Unnatural, while strapped to a machine with [[Lord Kroak|his spirit sticking nearby]] (the filmmakers zig-zagged on the nature of this; first it was the original Palpatine who had somehow duped everyone in ''Return of the Jedi'' with a clone stand in, then the reshoots changed it to the original's zombie-like rotting corpse animated by his lingering spirit and Lucasfilm later retconned him to be a zombie-like clone of Palpatine after the film's release). The only requirement for Palps to pass him Emperorship is killing Rey, although Ren is immediately suspicious of the other strings attached (including choking a guy in a hissyfit when that concern is voiced) and decides instead to recruit Rey again, this time as a co-Emperor.

Finn and Poe obtain information about a spy within the First Order (yeah, you know its fucking Hux even before they say there is a spy at all) while Rey gets visions during her training with Leia. The spy confirms that Palpatine is legit and the info about the fuckmassive deathfleet is legit, and Rey finds the Jedi texts contain notes from Luke about his search for that planet. They go to his last clue, a desert planet that isn't Tatooine and is the middle of a festival where they find Lando has been holed up enjoying himself since him and Luke traveled there. They are immediately spotted by the First Order and escape from them to find the ship of one of Palpatine's servants who had last been seen there. They fall into sinkholes around the ship created by giant tunneling worms, and find the skeleton of Sheev's boy as well as a Sith dagger. 3PO is programmed with the Sith language, but his programming from the Old Republic era forbids him from giving the translation to civilians. Rey manages to get the sand worms to leave them alone by using Force powers to heal one's wound, and they attempt to get the Sheev's servant's ship up and running before they are attacked by the First Order. Chewie is taken prisoner and Rey wrecks Kylo's TIE Fighter before the two engage in a Force tug of war to pull the transport Chewie is on, which ends in Rey accidentally Force Lightning it and causing it to explode when she becomes frustrated with the stalemate. Chewie is revealed to have been on another transport and is taken to Ren's flagship Star Destroyer while the heroes, instead of do something sensible like seek a Rebel leader who can give security clearance for 3PO's protocol (Leia's the obvious choice), they head to a planet under VERY Nazi-like occupation to find a droid technician who can hack 3PO's memory. They encounter a woman from Poe's past, revealing he was a former spice smuggler like Han until abandoning his crew (causing them to fall into debt and become bitter at him) to join the Resistance. She threatens to turn the group in to pay off their debt [[Mary Sue| but Rey kicks her ass, earning her respect and she takes them to the technician without further incident.]] The technician unlocks 3PO's memory at the cost of wiping him. The translation reveals the dagger is the key to finding the Sith navigation McGuffin they are looking for. During this BB-8 reactivates Sheev's servant's old droid, who doesn't do much.

The heroes proceed to board Ren's flagship with the help of a First Order officer's badge, and shoot their way through as they free Chewie. Rey and Ren have another linked vision where her parents are revealed to have attempted to hide her from her grandfather Palpatine, who wanted to merge the souls of himself and '''ALL''' other preceding Sith (presumably not Revan, since his redemption is canon) while he discovers they are on his ship and orders it put on lockdown. Rey is confronted in the hangar by Ren, who offers her to join him again. She refuses and the Falcon appears, the engines blowing away the Stormtroopers while Rey jumps aboard. The crew head to Endor after finding out from Sheev's servant's old droid that it was where he was going to go next (this is the only thing the droid does other than serve as a "pet the dog moment" for the cast a few times) where the Death Star wreckage of the disk and throne room landed, encountering a division of former child-soldier Stormtroopers like Finn who went AWOL. The dagger has a slide-out metal prong from the handle which perfectly lines up with the corridor leading to Sheev's throne room. The team work on repairing the Falcon while Rey presses on ahead, alone, to the Death Star wreckage. Once in the throne room a hidden door opens, revealing a sanctum full of crystal mirrors that are the same as the ones she saw in her vision in Force Awakens (the scene where she snaps her fingers and all the mirrored ones do as well). There she finds the Sith McGuffin and gets a "The Cave" vision of herself as a Sith with a red double-bladed lightsaber which she fights. Kylo is waiting for her in the throne room, and crushes the Sith McGuffin in his hand before informing her they are linked in the Force as one soul inhabiting two bodies and offering her again to be the Vader to her Palpatine which she again refuses. The two fight while Finn and one of the Stormtroopers try to rescue her. They fight their way onto the remnants of the Death Star hangar, reminiscent of Anakin and Obi-wan in Revenge Of The Sith with water instead of lava, before Ren freezes as he senses his mother start to die. This pause gives Rey time to grab his lightsaber and stab him before she freezes sensing Leia actually pass away. Rey uses the Force to heal him, then steals his TIE Fighter while Poe and Finn return to the Resistance base. Rey initially attempts to hide on Luke's monastery to let Palpatine's bloodline die with her, but after lighting Kylo's TIE on fire (so she's destroyed 2 of his personal TIE at this point) Luke appears as a Force ghost to tell her <strike>Rian Johnson</strike> he was wrong, and was motivated by fear when he tried to hide. He reveals that all the Jedi who came before are rooting for her, and tells her where Leia's lightsaber is hidden. He reveals she stopped her training because in a vision she saw that her son would be destroyed by the Dark Side, and a Light Side counterpart would take up her blade instead. Meanwhile, Kylo is visited by the memory of Han. The two reenact the scene from Force Awakens, only this time Kylo throws his lightsaber into the sea and renounces the name Kylo Ren to become simply Ben again. Meanwhile the First Order blow up Poe's home planet where the droid technician and Poe's old crew were, although they had managed to get offworld by that point. Also, R2-D2 restores C-3PO's memory wipe by finding a backup which contains everything from before the mission.

Luke lifts his X-Wing from the waves and Rey scavenges the Sith McGuffin from the flaming wreck of Kylo's ship. As she proceeds to the Sith planet she sends out a beacon to track her progress, giving the entire galaxy a map to the Sith fleet. Poe, now leader of the Resistance, sends Lando with the Falcon and Nien Nunb to gather any forces they can, all the ones who refused to aid them in The Last Jedi, while the rest of the Resistance gears up to attack Sheev's fleet before they can leave the storm cloud. The initial plan is to destroy the navigation device which orients them to the rest of the galaxy without which the fleet cannot leave, until the commander of the flagship (a former Imperial officer) realizes what they are doing and orders it to be shut down so his own ship could serve as the navigation for the rest. Rey confronts Sheev in a coliseum/throne room full of the Cultist parents of the personnel of the fleet (VD) and is informed of his plan to have her kill him so all the Sith could merge with her and rule as basically the God Emperor of Star Wars. She raises her lightsaber before using the strange wormhole Force connection thing they have to pass it to Ben, who had gotten there with a salvaged TIE from the Death Star wreckage and was being beaten by his former servants, the Knights Of Ren. Armed with Luke's old lightsaber he kills them and proceeds to the throne room. Ben arrives and the two attempt to fight him. He simply Force Pushes them back and forces them to kneel before draining a portion of their souls, the "two bodies one soul" thing apparently being a massive source of Force power he can heal himself with to rule in his own rejuvenated body again (but with Darth Maul eyes) rather than Rey's. Meanwhile, the ex-Stormtroopers and Resistance ground personnel lead by Finn land on the flagship Star Destroyer (its still in the atmosphere of the Sith planet, thus gravity and breathable air applies) and due to bringing goat-horse things from Endor are not affected by onboard EMP that would otherwise short out speeders and tanks (which is a thing from past canon, mostly comics and novels, which they use to explain why such a thing doesn't happen more often). Meanwhile, Lando appears with a fucking enormous fleet (remember the backstory that the New Republic didn't have a fleet, instead paying for every planet to have a militia of their own which would unite when there was a big enough threat? Well, JJ finally remembered because all those fucks show up alongside a neat little game of "spot that ship from the series you know" in a few shots). They begin attacking the superweapons underneath the Star Destroyers directly, causing chain reactions that blow the entire ship.

Ben is Force-pushed by Sheev into a pit as revenge for how Vader did the same thing to him before taunting the dying Rey and unleashing a MASSIVE Force Lightning storm which shorts out the fleet. While this is going on the spirits of all the dead Jedi (like pretty much anyone they could find to record a line from any of the past movies or shows, including Ahsoka; which is pretty lame since it means she was killed off-screen, with natural causes being unlikely since Ahsoka wouldn't have been 80 yet, and even that's below the average Togruta life expectancy, though this may not necessarily be the case according to Filoni) who inhabit her body the same way that Palpatine is currently full of all the Sith. Rey manages to stand and deflects his Force Lightning with Leia's lightsaber, which isn't enough until Ben manages to climb out of the pit and throw her Luke's lightsaber; with the two together she's able to walk close enough to Sheev for his Force Lightning to burn him, and despite this being the third fucking time this has happened he does not turn off the lightning and instead Raiders Of The Lost Ark's himself into a skeleton before blowing up and destroying not only himself but the spirits of all the past Sith. Despite Palpatine's plan being to possess Rey when she kills him, for some reason he doesn't do so. The Jedi spirits leave Rey and she dies, with the barely lingering on Ben healing her. They share a kiss (reminder that since Sheev created Anakin, they're basically cousins, and their relationship is so adversarial it makes Edward and Bella's from Twilight look healthy, something the novelization tries to claim is "purely platonic") before Ben dies. His body vanishes, as does Leia's. The Resistance/Militia fleet destroy all the Star Destroyers after Finn's ground crew hijacks one of the cannons of the flagship to shoot at the ship bridge, killing the last of the old Empire and First Order leadership.

The heroes return to the Resistance planet where they celebrate, scenes showing the rest of the galaxy shooting the last of the First Order Star Destroyers play, Chewie is given Han's old medal from A New Hope, and the ex-Stormtrooper leader is hinted to be Lando's daughter or grandaughter implying a spinoff with the two. After the celebrations Rey returns to Luke's old home on Tatooine where she buries Anakin and Leia's lightsabers, revealing she built her own from her Force vision only with yellow blades instead of red ones. An old woman who was a neighbor of Owen and Beru comments nobody had been to that place in years and asks Rey's name. Seeing the Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia, she tells the woman her name is Rey Skywalker. The End.

Because god knows this fandom can no longer agree on fucking anything anymore, there was immediately fan wars going on everywhere Star Wars fans are found. Fans accused haters of review bombing, those who hated the movie claimed the critic score (which, if you recall, is mostly people who liked The Last Jedi and hate this movie for doing a U-turn on it) vindicates them. The fan fighting probably won't ever end, since now we apparently have to reevaluate if A New Hope and the Kenner Star Wars toys were ever good in the first place because some contrarians now claim the prequels are the pinnacle of Star Wars. Whatever the case, Disney CEO Bog Iger resigned in the middle of the work week in late February 2020, indicating that the backlash and fan alienation had a deeper impact than anticipated.
</div>
</div>

==Expanded Universe==

It can be said what makes a franchise into a long term lasting thing is when a wealth of extra story and background is created that expands on the original story far beyond what there was. It could be argued Star Wars leads the race in this, as the sheer amount of extra novels, graphic novels and games based on Star Wars can and does overwhelm the ordinary fan.

===The original EU/Star Wars "Legends"===

[[Image: Choices_of_One_PB_art.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Before Cara, before Rey, before Ashoka, Nomi Sunrider or Padme... there was Mara Jade]]
The background has expanded into the distant past before the founding of the current Jedi and Sith orders and into the (not-quite-so) far future looking at the descendants of Luke Skywalker and other popular characters. Uniquely, especially considering [[Warhammer 40K|other]] [[Star Trek|franchises']] track records, the Star Wars Expanded Universe is <strike>remarkably</strike> <strike>sorta</strike> sometimes internally consistent, both with other sources within the universe and with the films themselves, at least in comparison to other comparable settings. Of course, it's got plenty of its own [[C. S. Goto|problem children]] that slipped through, and the [[skub]] mine of it all isn't much shallower than that of 40K. Good portions of it do hold up well, largely due to the efforts of Lucas' company's continuity department leaning on everyone to hold it together. One thing that greatly helps is continuity books and articles aren't afraid to make small retcons to make even the most obscure and shitty sources (like that terrible PS1 fighting game) seem like part of an organized plot. Particularly well-loved parts include characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn (a rare alien officer in the Empire and popular enough that Disney brought him back to the canon from the EU) and Mara Jade (a Force-using former agent of Emperor Palpatine who later turned good, became a Jedi Master, married Luke and had a son with him) - interestingly both were created by the same author [[Timothy Zahn]].

Upon their acquisition, Disney said "fuck it" and threw out everything but the films and the Clone Wars cartoons. Some popular old stuff got mentions or appearances (and Thrawn got to be a major character), but the overall quality is even lower than the old EU. What was set up as a major book contains phrases like "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air" and random virtue signalling. As though to top the previous, Disney literally published a book with an entire chapter about mass wedding farts (Yes. Really.). The only good stuff is from established EU authors writing stuff far away from era of the Disney films.

The [[rage]] over the EU's scrapping was major among many fans of it, but for all Disney's shortcomings, they were in a tight spot. Towards the end all that continuity and consistency got thrown out the airlock for increasingly dumb and disjointed narratives and garbled plot threads to the point that the Star Wars logo was just about as much a sign of quality as the Nintendo approval stamp on shitty SNES games. Though they have their fans, particularly contentious parts include the grimdark invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong - forcenull space-Druchii (no no, not Comorrites though they have the pain and body modification fetishes for it, space-'''Druchii''', riding enslaved tyranid bioships) from another galaxy, a personal-sized spaceship that could blow up whole galaxies and destroy fleets on its own, Mnggal-Mnggal - mindraping gelatin lost on its way to Star Trek, and Abeloth - an ancient (she predates the Jedi and the Sith) yandere Force entity who wandered in from the Cthulhu Mythos and is so dangerous the Jedi and the Sith '''joined forces''' to fight her. It's difficult to envision how Disney could have kept the EU when even before all that it was struggling to find a market beyond the most [[neckbeards|dedicated fans]].

===The Books===

'''The Good EU'''
[[Image: Heir-to-the-empire-cover.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Heir to the Empire (1991): The book that started it all]]
* '''The Thrawn Trilogy''': The origination point for the EU, and focuses on the conflict with the Imperial remnants left over after RotJ. Named for the main villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, who went on to become one of Star Wars most well-loved characters. Basically the story "The Force Awakens" wishes it was. Also introduced Mara Jade, a sexy redhead that's everything Disney wishes Rey was and more.
* '''The Han Solo Adventures''': Star's End was the second spinoff book written and the first good one. Han and Chewie are trying to get some work done on the Falcon and wind up having to bust out some political prisoners to pay for it. Would have made for a better film than ''Solo'' did.
* '''Shadows of the Empire''': Shadows is set between ESB and RotJ and fills in the details of getting the Death Star II's plans, finding out where Han was taken, Luke building his own saber, etc by the introduction of another bounty hunter by the name of Dash Rendar. The Special Edition rerelease of ''A New Hope'' added the Outrider to the background of one scene. Most notable for the fact that it was also adapted into a video game for the N64 and PC.
*'''The Darth Bane Trilogy''': The origin of the Rule of Two for the Sith, along with a compelling protagonist and his apprentice.
* '''Revenge of the Sith''': The novelization is actually considered a serious improvement over the movie itself.

'''The Bad EU'''
* '''Jedi Academy Trilogy''': Luke sets up his academy on Yavin IV and tries to teach [[Rage|Kyp Durron]]. Imperial remnant superweapons hit ludicrous territory with the sun crusher. This was the beginning of Kevin J Anderson hammering out a couple dozen Star Wars books over about four years.
* '''Young Jedi Knights Series''': Set between Jedi Academy and New Jedi Order, mostly follows Han & Leia's kids.
* '''I, Jedi''': A retelling of the Jedi Academy Trilogy (see above) with more of Corran Horn from the first set of X-Wing books. Less derp in general but significantly more [[Mary Sue]]age of Horn.
* '''Legacy of the Force''': The survivors of the Yuuzhan Vong War are trying to rebuild the galaxy, but Jacen Solo turns Sith and becomes the main villain. The book series is infamous for nearly killing the Star Wars EU, threatening the franchise and issues between various writers years before Disney went down the same road (Jacen Solo was also a major influence for Kylo Ren). The biggest complaints were Jacen killing Mara, the heroes becoming idiots whenever they could've stopped the villains, poor dialogue, long-winded writing and the story being overstuffed with allusions to post 9/11 United States.

'''The [[Skub]] EU'''
* '''New Jedi Order''': The longest-running (19 books long) and most divisive story of the EU. Luke's married to Mara and they're rebuilding the Jedi Order while Han and Leia are trying to reconcile the New Republic and Imperial Remnants. Han and Leia are also raising three kids and Mara's got a terminal illness. Then extragalactic aliens called Yuuzhan Vong - [[Imperium of Man|religious fanatics]] with [[Tyranids|organic technology]], a thing for [[Dark Eldar|pain and body modification]] along with [[Culexus|partial immunity to The Force]] - start a war to conquer the Star Wars Galaxy. Chewie dies Majora's Mask style, Mara's illness is cured and she gives birth to Ben Skywalker, the Vong take over Coruscant, lots is learned about the Force and the bodycount goes so high it could give Warhammer 40k a run for its money (365 TRILLION; only the War in Heaven or the Fall of the Eldar had anywhere near that many deaths in one event). A real love-it-or-hate-it series, some parts were good, some were bad and some were weird.
* '''Dark Empire''': Palpatine's back to save a dying franchise decades before Disney tried it. Starts off good, falls apart fast. Known for its love-it-or-hate-it artstyle and dialogue.
* '''Courtship of Princess Leia''': Deals with another Imperial remnant. This one has force witches. It's also ''really'' silly. If you like that, raise this higher. If not, it might even drop lower.
* '''Fate of the Jedi''': People are growing dissatisfied with the Jedi Order following LotF. Luke, Ben and the remaining Jedi are trying to fix things just as a Sith Tribe emerges from hiding. Things take a turn for cosmic horror when a yandere, Force-using eldritch abomination who could doom the galaxy escapes her prison. The Sith apprentice Vestara rises through the ranks and finds herself in a Catwoman/Batman situation with Ben Skywalker. While being an OoM better than the preceding trilogy, FotJ has a very divided opinion among SW fans.

=== Disney Canon ===
[[Image:Star_Wars_Disney_Princesses.jpg|right|400px|thumb|Love it or hate it, they are now official ''Disney Princesses''.]]
It's still [[skub|debatable]] whether or not the new Canon holds up to the old EU, or learns to fix the problems that plagued it. We probably won't see what comes of it for decades to come. Disney Canon, as of 2020, seems to largely be built around the nine main movies (of course), with shows like Rebels and Clone Wars alongside anthology movies fleshing out stories that had been told in comics and books back before the Disney buy-up, but can now be seen on film.

A curious thing that has begun happening: Certain elements of the old EU is slipping into the Disney Canon. Plotlines like the Emperor returning, the Death Star plans heist and Han's path to become the smuggler we know him as all have bits and pieces from EU canon in them. In some cases, whole characters are ported in; the best example is Admiral Thrawn, who appears in Rebels. Other times, popular characters has their traits or stories ported into new ones (Finn and Cassian are both expies of Kyle Katarn, for example). This gives some credence to the argument that Lucasfilms and Disney wanted to wipe the slate with all the stories that had been told in the EU, so they could create their own, fully realized canon Star Wars setting that one could make movies - ''many'' movies - from. Considering the amount of shitty fan-fiction-esque stories the EU had, this may be for the best, but of course, storylines that people have loved for ages are also thrown out with the bathwater.

Now. Detractors of Disney-era Star Wars often talk loads about how the sequel trilogy invalidates the original trilogy, or how Disney screwed over Luke or ignored cool characters like Kyle Katarn. These are semi-valid arguments of course, but they ignore some of the biggest issues with the EU originally - it wasn't sponsored by George Lucas and Lucasfilms. They were sponsored fan-fiction in a sense, semi-canon from the outset and not really something that could be considered a part of the Star Wars setting, though George Lucas did work with the writers to a point, such as with the New Jedi Order book series (he gave them permission to kill off Chewbacca in the story). In fact, George never really considered them real stories; more like a parallel universe of his own Star Wars works. He accepted it because they bring in the big bucks when people would beg to have the official Star Wars logo on anything they produced.

That, and the sequel trilogy, underwhelming as it may be, was George's idea in broad strokes. The series was always going to have a sequel trilogy, and while the outcome isn't exactly what he (or we) wanted, quite a lot of it is. Luke being an exile on a far-away planet, who has to be roused to fight by a new, female Jedi? George's idea, not Disney's. If anything, much of the direction comes from Lucasfilms; Disney just wants the movie to sell well. It's similar with Marvel nowadays.

So for better or worse, the Disney Canon is the first time the wider setting of Star Wars beyond the series and movies have become irrevocably canon, rather than "kinda-sorta-canon". Much of what we've gotten that is new is based roughly on George's own work as well. Remember this when discussing EU vs Disney in Star Wars - Either setting is cool for their own reasons, but the Mouse got little to do with it - and if you don't like it, bring it up with big man Lucas. Whatever the case, with Bob Iger's resignation as CEO from Disney (likely not on his terms, as he stated multiple times he would retire in 2021), things are changing (for better or worse).

==Star Wars:The Television Shows==
===Star Wars:The Clone Wars===
Technically, there are two series called similar titles. The first was 2004's ''Star Wars: Clone Wars'', an animated miniseries made by Genndy Tartakovsky (He of Dexter's Lab and [[Samurai Jack]] fame) chronicling, among other things, the titular Clone Wars and introducing a much more sinister General Grievous to the world.

But then we have ''The Clone Wars'', a CGI animated series (and tie-in movie) that we'll be talking about more and contributed more to the EU. One of the most universally known and loved parts of Star Wars, most fans worth their action figures and limited edition movie sets have watched the show and have an opinion on it one way or another. Some of the most notable characteristics are:

* The Clone Troopers are fleshed out,and we see that they are manly motherfuckers who make Guardsmen's balls of steel look like the cardboard their armor is made out of (seriously, in the movie, they literally charge straight into close combat with ''giant armored walkers with large guns'' and jump off roofs to get top of them to shoot them point blank, and punch droids in the face)
* Anakin Skywalker is actually a good, fleshed out character, with a good voice actor and shows his descent to child-murdering Force-choking asshat wasn't just him going 'welp, guess I'll fall to the Dark Side.' There was a fair amount of bad-cop “it was him or me” murder to get there.
* Introduces Ashoka Tano, a major character who's a female Togruta Jedi that's well-written, non-OP, non-Mary Sue and doesn't invalidate characters from the movies. Starts off a bit annoying in the Clone Wars movie, but manages to do something truly special: she ''learns''. Over the course of Clone Wars and Rebels, Ashoka probably has the most character development out of any other Star Wars character.
* Obi-Wan being a sexy one-liner spouting sarcastic badass.
* And many others.

However, there were some pretty derp moments too, such as

* Babysitting episode/movie.
* D-squad, where a bunch of droids become heroes of the Republic.
* Mandalore and how it's fluff was basically screwed 180 degrees, and then some.
* Droids were comic relief of the first and second seasons. It was annoying.

All in all, it was an good show that took some time to find it's feet.

After many years, a seventh season was been announced in an attempt to take away from ''The Last Jedi'' being shit and add ''something'' to the empty Disney Plus lineup. At least some of the episodes will be ones that were in production when the show ended. It promptly disappeared after that announcement for a couple years till it was announced it's coming out in 2019.

===Star Wars: Rebels===
[[Image:WomanYellingAtLothcat.jpeg|right|400px|thumb|''Stop fooling our plan, you rebel scum!'']]
Now that Disney owns Star Wars they can't go a season without something new to run on Disney XD, so after ''The Clone Wars'' ended they needed a series to milk episodes out of and launched ''Rebels''. ''Rebels'' is set a few years before ''A New Hope'' and covers the early formation of the rebellion from the perspective of one cell focused on the planet Lothal. If you liked ''Rogue One'' but thought it should be about 25 hours long and done in cartoony CGI then this is the show for you.

So what did we see in ''Rebels''?

* Grand Admiral Thrawn makes his debut in Disney Star Wars, along with the TIE Defender project. The character doesn’t lose much in the translation, and later on is arguably treated better than the source.
* The bearded old guy in the Endor strike team in RotJ turns out to be Captain Rex. Fan theory at first, later confirmed.
* You CAN [[combi-weapon]] a lightsaber and a blaster, and it's OP as shit
* Force wolves (no, not [[Rune Priest|those force wolves]])
* [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones-style]] Mandos (Krownest is pretty much Space-Winterfell).
* Imperial Inquisitors. Sure they don’t last long, but they were intimidating while they were, and it planted the seed that was used elsewhere.
* Some good appearances by Darth Vader.

So about the wolves... ''Rebels'' turns the force mysticism up past 11. Forget just being precog space monks with laser swords; as far as ''Rebels'' is concerned the Jedi are [[craftworld]] [[eldar]] without the racism. Rebels picks up the torch of the Clone Wars “Force Gods” and mixes in some of the straight-up fantasy shit from the Lucas era novels and the KOTOR/Old Republic Jedi philosophy schools and heresies beyond just “Light good, Dark bad”.

However, there were levels of derp that we got to see in this show, such as the following:

* Since this is a Disney cartoon, the bad guys can't have even a temporary victory. This changes Thrawn and the other Imperials from an imposing force to [[Abbadon|cartoon villains]], although Rebels villains manage to stay intimidating more than Grievous did in Clone Wars.
* Battles slower paced than a Death Guard movement phase. Enjoy characters having full conversations in cover-based shooting when everyone has Stormtrooper aim.
* Lightsabers the shape of toothpicks.
* [[Bullshit|Helicopter lightsabers]]
* Complete bipolarity in tone. This can create some great moments, but invariably ruins the mood episode by episode, or between the A and B plots.
* Iron Squadron. Just...fucking [[Rage|Iron Squadron]]
* Star Destroyers look terrible, mostly due to their bridge towers being way taller than they should be.

All in all, it depends on your preference.

Since the show does have a fair amount of dedicated fans, <strike>likely</strike> possibly more than the sequel trilogy itself, Disney has made a habit of planting Easter Egg references to Rebels in basically everything moving forward, usually in the form of an appearance by the iconic ship The Ghost or the friendly-ish space pirate character Hondo Ohnaka.

===Star Wars: Resistance===
Annnd they had to go and change things again. With ''Rebels'' coming to a close and a burning need to keep Star Wars on their lineup, Disney had a choice: find a new plot and setting for a formula and art style that had produced two successful multi-season shows, or throw it all out and start from scratch. Remember, this is Disney we're talking about, the company that once [[Fail|paid a quarter billion dollars to fire the producer who made ''The Little Mermaid'', ''Beauty and the Beast'', ''Aladdin'', and ''The Lion King'']] only for him to go and [[profit|found Dreamworks]] out of spite.

Like its predecessor, ''Star Wars: Resistance'' sets itself up as a prequel to a trilogy, in this case following the early days of the Resistance in its fight against the First Order. Where it differs from ''Rebels'' is that ''Resistance'' is playing the warm up act for a trilogy that nobody likes. On top of which, the creators abandoned the 3D style that ''Rebels'' inherited from ''The Clone Wars'', and replaced it with a cel style that's half ''Treasure Planet'', half ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' and all ''RWBY''.

To be blunt, this show is 100% pure crystal derp. Our star is Kazuda Xiono, a manic depressive who literally fanboy-ed his way into being a spy under the cover story of being a mechanic, two jobs he is not qualified for. This kid is the Invader Zim of Star Wars. Filling out the cast we have the original only cockney girl in space, an autistic alien, their widower boss who is definitely gonna die, D.Va and her ex-imperial officer dad, and BB-8. Poe Dameron shows up regularly so he can be Ace Fucking Rimmer without having to compete against Rey for the TOP SUE trophy. Reception was so terrible it was confirmed canceled at 2 seasons before the second season even started.

Part of the problem with ''Resistance'' is that the First Order has a doomfort that can frag planets across the galaxy, yet has to resort to hiring pirates to encourage settlements into accepting the First Order's protection racket. Palpy's empire was a model of efficient, heavy handed governance; its evil intent veiled from the masses who mostly resent it for bringing order. The First Order on the other hand is basically just Cobra Command, a font of evil hamstrung by flailing incompetence. As mentioned earlier, the backstory for the Resistance and First Order is basically that the First Order are a mobile pirate fleet with one untested secret base weapon lead by old farts of dubious actual leadership abilities from the Empire and their fanatical children with grunts made up of brainwashed child soldiers kidnapped from pioneer settlements while the Resistance is just a tiny militia that is so poorly funded they don’t even qualify as a single fleet since their few outdated capital ships are crewed by outdated droids and they don’t even have enough fighters to protect them, but rather than depict the potentially interesting dynamic this suggests the series just tries to be Rebels again, the same path the movies took even though at this point both factions are even smaller than they were in the movies.

===Star Wars: The Mandalorian===

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti western's so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up. Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well know spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Adeptus_Arbites|Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way" their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times, (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing). The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand awesome.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Jedi''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

==Wookieepedia==
One of the largest fan wikis ever created, this bad boy is extensively cited, has enormous variety, and has page upon page of talk. It was if Lexicanum, the 40k fan wiki, and our own glorious site were fused into a terrible beast.

==Impact on 1d4chan and associated games etc==

Star Wars has had subtle and clear impacts on a number of other franchises and genres and it can be ''incredibly'' hard to gauge the extent of it all. Certainly it didn't create the concepts of sci-fi, space battles, sweeping storylines, and a blending of mystical and scientific ideas, but it certainly popularized them during the years of the original trilogy and influenced many people that would go on to have interests in sci-fi, fantasy and epic adventure today.

Hell, look me in the eye and tell me that the lightsaber didn't give us the [[power weapon]]. But then again, magic weapons.
==Sabacc and Pazaak==
A rather unusual entry here but it's well in line, Sabacc is an actual tabletop card game from the Star Wars universe which is basically a hybrid of Poker and Blackjack. A Sabacc Deck has 76 cards, most of which in four suits of 16 cards numbered one to 16, plus sixteen wildcards in two sets with values that were either negative or (in the case of the Idiot) Zero. The goal of the game is to have a set of three cards who's total as close as possible to, but not over, 23 or -23. If you got 23/-23 (Pure Sabacc) which could only be beaten by an Idiot's Array (One Idiot, a two and a three, thus 23). The stakes are raised every cycle until the cards go down or one player is left standing who gets the pot.

The notable thing about Sabacc that sets it apart from real world card games is that the Cards can change value every turn. A Pure Sabacc can easily become an instant lose 25 and an absolutely lousy hand can become an Idiot's Array. They can be stabilized to fix their value, but everyone knows when you do so. This feature has so far prevented Sabacc from being released in tabletop form as of yet. ''(Of course, there are ways to deal with this, such as simply re-dealing unfixed cards, but never let it be said that nerds will choose practicality over purity.)''

In universe, Han Solo won the Millenium Falcon off Lando in a game of Sabacc.

Pazaak is an older game from an in-universe perspective, similar to Blackjack but its player versus player rather than player versus dealer and also has some aspects of a collectible card game. Goal of the game is to raise cards from the main deck until their total value is 20 or they can also choose to stand if they get close but don't want to risk it. Best out of five wins.

CCG-aspect of Pazaak comes from the sidedeck: both players collect ten cards for their side deck and then randomly take four cards from their side deck to their hand in the beginning of the game. Hand cards are used to either lower or raise the total value: so if the player raises cards from the main deck to the total value of 25, they can prevent dropping out if they have a -5 card or higher in their hand.
Cards which only either raise or lower the value are the most common of the side cards.
More rarer are cards which can be used to both raise and lower the value.
Then there are flip cards, which change certain main deck cards on the table to negative ones. So if the player plays a 2&4 flip card, all 2:s and 4:s on the table become -2:s and -4:s. Flip cards exist in 2&4:s and 3&6:s.
Then there is the double card, which doubles the value of the last played card. So if the player raises a 5 from the main deck, playing the double card would turn it into a 10.
Finally, the rarest side deck card is the tiebreaker, which grants the player a win if the game would otherwise end in a tie.

==Tabletop games for Star Wars==

=== Role-playing Games ===

[[West End Games]] made a Star Wars [[role-playing game]] called [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] AKA '''Star Wars D6'''. Like many West End products, it's a good game with the great misfortune of being published by West End games.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] picked up the license later and made two distinct RPGs based on their [[d20 System]], called [[Star Wars D20]] (imaginatively). Could be fun, but generally broken as hell, much like [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|its parent game]]. It was then utterly revised that into what they called the '''Saga Edition''', which is relatively balanced and pretty good.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars Roleplaying Game|a whole line of Star Wars-themed RPGs]], each one focusing on a specific style of play. You want to play a bunch of scruffy space outlaws (Edge of the Empire), members of the nascent Rebellion (Age of Rebellion), or exiled Jedi Knights (Force and Dedtiny), then they got you covered. Unlike their [[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]] games, which are all ''juuuuust'' different enough from one another to completely buttfuck any attempts at blending, all three gamelines use identical mechanics and are fully cross-compatible. Uses symbol-counting [[dice pool]]s with ludicrously overpriced custom dice.
Like the other RPGs they decided with the retardedly similar name, and thus this one is sometimes called '''Star Wars FFG''' to avoid confusion.

FFG have kept milking the franchise and in summer 2017, decided to [[Necromancer | reanimate]] the [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] with a "30th Year Anniversary Edition" print of the original game. It '''''finally''''' shipped in July 2018 after spending a year in limbo.

=== Card Games ===

The big [[card game]] set in the Star Wars universe is the [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]. It's no longer produced by Decipher, but there is still a sufficiently large player community to organize annual tournaments, rule on cards, and so on. SWCCG was radically different from the norm of card games, being divided into light and dark side cards with different backings, with light and dark always playing against each other. For tournament play a player would need both a light and dark deck.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] made the [[Star Wars Trading Card Game]].

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars: The Card Game]].

Obviously, nobody is capable of creating a Star Wars card game with an interesting name.

Aside from the real, physical, games there was also ''Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game''. It was a real, functioning, card game within the MMO that used all virtual cards. Unfortunately no server emulators have implemented it yet.

=== Miniature Games ===
[[Wizards of the Coast]] did a tabletop battles game imaginatively called Star Wars: Miniatures, based on an extremely dumbed down version of the D&D ruleset. The figures were meant to tie in with the Saga edition RPG, it wasn't terrible on its own, just impossible to collect for competitive play since figures came in random booster packs so you never know what you were getting for what faction. Who could possibly stand for that?

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is producing the [[X-Wing]] miniatures game based on individual starfighter combat (because, let's be honest, that's what ''Star'' Wars is all about). They have also released [[Star Wars: Armada]] which is a larger scale "fleet" combat simulator, using capital ships and squadrons of starfighters.

'''Star Wars: Imperial Assault'''

The latest [[Fantasy Flight Games]] addition to its Star Wars related games is a mix between a miniature board game and a skirmish wargame. It has two play modes:

One for campaign play where 1-4 players control a team of Rebel heroes and another player has the role of the DM, who controls the Imperial forces. The campaign, as the name suggests, focuses on character personalization, xp gain and the like, which you can find in any light RPG-esque (board)game. The main goal is to get a few friends together and casually play through the missions. Think of it as a Star Wars version of the original [[Hero Quest]].

The other play mode is skirmish play, where two players each get to assemble a team of miniatures plus a command deck (cards that have specific effects when played) and play against each other in an open-play scenario. The play area is still very limited to a few game tiles (as in a campaign mission) but players are free to bring whatever they want (with a few limitations of course). The skirmish part of Imperial assault is as close as you can get to an actual Star Wars skirmish wargame, but it is a missed opportunity from Fantasy Flight to create a true skirmish wargame (ala [[Infinity (wargame)|Infinity]]), not based on tiles and so confined spaces. Who knows what they have plans for though...

'''Star Wars Legion'''

And Fantasy Flight have now given us a fully fledged wargame, complete with AT-ST in the first wave. (They're 32mm scale, which means [[Games Workshop|no reusing your Imperial Assault miniatures]].) Legion has an integrated turn system, and the usual FF custom dice and forest worth of dead trees in cards and tokens that will be familiar to X-Wing and Armada players. The miniatures are PVC, reasonably detailed, easy to assemble pieces. A standard battle is 800 points, which could be anywhere from half a dozen to 16 units on the field, with an average army fielding 8-12 units comprising 30-ish models.

=== Board Games ===

The most famous and arguably best one is [[Star Wars: Rebellion]], an asymmetric two-player game that plays through the Original Trilogy in a wargame/worker placement-esque game. The Empire player must expand their already huge military base over the galaxy to build more ships and huge superweapons while searching for the Rebel Base, while the Rebels do their best to bite them in their heel, obscuring their movements and annoying the Empire until they have enough support to overthrow the Empire. As a [[Fantasy Flight Games|FFG]] boardgame, it's filled with a ludicrous amount of bits and pieces (including sweet models of Star Destroyers, Death Stars and Calamari Cruisers), as well as the trademark filled-with-small-exceptions ruleset. It's pretty sweet and still considered one of the best board games of its kind.

=== Card Miniature Games ===

In the late 00's, WizKids produced a short lived construct-able miniatures Star Wars game based on their styrene card system for Pirates of the Spanish Main. Although the game sold well, when NECA bought WizKids from Topps the rights did not transfer and it went out of print.

==Video Games for Star Wars==

To put it bluntly, every game which could possibly have ''Star Wars'' slapped onto it, exists. Flight simulators. Racers. Rail shooters. Doom clones. MMOs. Age of Empires reskins. Hell, there's even a Kinect variety game. Here's a few standouts...

* '''Knights of the Old Republic''': A pair of single player RPGs depicting a Sith war several thousand years before ''A New Hope''. KotOR is widely regarded as the best Star Wars video game ever, and was the framework for BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' series. Of all the Legends stuff, KotOR appears to still be in good standing with Disney since they continue to borrow from it. The sequel by Obsidian was the original skubtastic take on the franchise TLJ wanted to be but failed miserably. Got an MMO simply called "Old Republic" (since you can play as things other than Jedi and Sith) that is the sequel, which had a very rough start but stabilized enough to still survive to this day somehow). Possibly still canon in the Disney continuity since a lot of things get borrowed or referenced from it. Also the only thing in the EU to still receive new content.

* '''Jedi Knight:''' A series that started of as an early FPS named Dark Forces (so early that it was the time when FPS games were still known as [[Doom]]-clones) but Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had the protagonist become a Jedi. The Dark Forces name was dropped in favor of Jedi Knight after this. The series combines surprisingly deep lightsaber combat with standard shooting, though the levels can get very mazy at times. Introduced Kyle Katarn, one of the most popular characters from EU. Unfortunately, there has not been a new game since 2003's ''Jedi Academy'' and likely will never be thanks to Disney.

* '''Republic Commando''': An FPS that has the player command a squad of commandos. Its a great shooter but unfortunately, it never received a sequel and to make things worse, ended on a cliffhanger. The second act of the game, set entirely on a drifting Acclamator-class assault ship is particularly memorable and highly atmospheric. If one can look past outdated graphics, its worth trying out for anyone who wants a good FPS experience.

* '''Empire at War''': Made by the original developers of [[Command and Conquer]], it is the most notable strategy game to have come out of Star Wars. Notable for featuring three different modes of play: ground battles, space battles and galactic conquest map. Though ground battles are a bit meh, the space battles are great and the galactic conquest is certainly more interesting than only playing random skirmish matches. Even though its over 10 years old, it has a very active modding community. Republic at War, which changes the games Galactic Civil War setting to Clone Wars and Thrawns Revenge, set much further into the Galactic Civil War than portrayed in the films, are particularly great. There is also a remake mod in the works, aiming to bring the game up to modern standards in terms of visuals, sound and UI and the results do look good. Unfortunately, no great 40k mod.

* '''Star Wars Galaxies''': An early MMO, launched after ''Everquest'' but before ''WoW''. Galaxies is noteworthy for making force powers a prestige achievement requiring enormous in-game effort to unlock. The first expansion pack added a subgame that's a pretty solid flight game in its own right and the game eventually added an original, fully playable, trading card game that sadly has not yet been implemented in any simulator. Then ''World of Warcraft'' hit, Sony panicked and made Jedi a starting class and replaced the skill system with massive level grind, and offered refunds to the raging army of neckbeards. Subscription numbers tanked and never recovered. It would effectively be replaced by ''The Old Republic'', an MMO using the acclaimed KotOR setting. Like most "dead" MMOs that people loved it still lives on through illegal private servers (don't worry, the guys providing it would get busted, not people playing on it).

* '''X-Wing (and TIE Fighter)''': A series of ''Wing Commander'' clones released in the 90's. While badly dated today, they were the best fighter sims of their time, and if you can get past the highly primitive graphics some people still consider them to be the best to this day. Interestingly, TIE Fighter is largely seen as the best of the series while the N64 era Rogue Squadron and Shadows Of The Empire games are seen as being far more visually modern but largely inferior sequels. Did we mention you had to use a flight stick controller basically made for these games to really do well at these?

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2005)''': Not to be confused with the one released by EA in 2017. Solid game from the new-defunct Pandemic studio (fuck you, EA) in 2005 told from the perspective of a clone trooper that survived all the way up to the battle of Hoth, with a very down to earth boots on the ground approach. Also, just being thrown into random matches as a soldier because fun. Despite some issues, it remains the high point of the Battlefront series as well as the entire PS2 era, and on PC still has fans via an active modding community to this day. There is of course also the original one but the second one pretty much completely overshadowed it.

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)''': The one by EA. You've probably heard everything important. An absolute mess at launch due to its lootbox-heavy progression system, so much so that it started discussion even on government level about lootboxes that continues to this day. A comment by EA that became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Yet despite all this, two years later, the game is arguably one of the best Star Wars experiences one can have and an Anakin-level redemption story. Like the previous Battlefront II, it completely overshadowed its predecessor.

* '''Jedi: Fallen Order''': It took them years but finally, EA managed to deliver a Star Wars game that is great on launch without cramming it with e-transactions. Its plot focuses on an unfortunate Jedi renegade between ''Revenge'' and ''A New Hope'' who's on the hunt for a hidden database that might document all the Force-sensitive individuals in the galaxy. A game inspired primarily by games such as Dark Souls and Uncharted, its a great action-adventure game in its own right and a must-play for any Star Wars fan.

* '''Monopoly Star Wars''': Its Star Wars Monopoly. With 90's FMV that plays for every square you land on. On floppy disks. Considered fucking amazing at the time, its too strange and tabletop to not mention. Also one of the last pre-Prequel things released.

* '''Super Star Wars''': A heavily modified retelling of the original trilogy (what, you don't remember how Luke chased down the Sandcrawler and murdered all the Jawas as well as their giant rat god in order to rescue R2-D2?) that was one of the ways to say "hard as fuck" by namedropping a game prior to Dark Souls existing. Amusing for the insanity of the added content in order to make a platformer sidescrolling beat'em'up as well as how neckbeardy you have to be to punish yourself trying to beat it without cheating.

* '''Star Wars: Yoda Stories''': A game geared for kids, released the same year as Monopoly above. Players play as Luke sometime after Empire Strikes Back, although an odd alternate version where Han sometimes is free from carbonite and Boba Fett and sometimes is not. They are assigned a quest by Yoda which requires them to traverse one or more procedurally generated planets doing whatever odd crap Yoda felt was necessary, including sometimes fighting Vader. Recieved middling scores as a PC release, with some individuals HATING the game and using it as a benchmark for how much they hate something when comparing the two, although to be fair that is because distributors tried to sell it like a full game when in reality its supposed to just be freebie software that came with other purchases and was meant to go with Solitaire and space pinball as default games on a computer to waste time with. It has lapsed into obscurity thanks to even those reviewers largely being forgotten on the modern internet. Noteworthy for being played on a grid with simultaneous turn-based movement with all enemies and NPCs on a screen, feeling very much like a tabletop game at times. A simple puzzle game, where getting blocked in a corner without enough space to pass the time by an idiot NPC is more dangerous than any foe.

*'''Shadows of the Empire''': Made on the Nintendo 64 and Windows PC, you play as Dash Rendar, a scoundrel in a ship like Han Solo working for the Rebellion. Takes place during Episode V as a side story. Despite being much beloved by fans for years and years, it's sadly not aged well thanks to the rather peculiar control scheme of the N64 and the graphics not having aged like cheap cheese in the sun. Main enemy of the game is a xeno named Xisor who is just a real uppity crime boss (and apparently a prince). This game has an absolute great opening first part where you're flying in a Snowspeeder on Hoth killing Imperials left and right while trying to use the cables to crash the AT-ATs like in the movie. After that the game begins to kinda just carry on with awkward controls.

==Assorted list of Awesome From Star Wars==
* Fucking ''[[Lightsaber|Lightsabers!]]''
* The fucking [[Approved music|OST]]
* What is likely the greatest duel in cinematic history, that takes place on a [[Death World|lava planet.]]
* Deathly Stormtroopers, heroic Clonetroopers or sinister First Order troopers; whatever they're called, stormtroopers are awesome!
* Darth Vader whenever he gets a speaking line or to murder rebel scum - that is to say, all the time.
* Darth Maul in both The Phantom Menace and TCW.
* Lightsaber Rifles
* The entirety of the Umbara campaign, where <s>Imperial Guardsmen</s> Clone Troopers die in the dozens attempting to win some godforsaken planet, earning them balls of titanium that make the guard look ba- {{BLAM| '''*BLAM*''' Heresy!}}
* 97% of the Creatures.
* 98% of the Starfighter designs.
* Costumes that mix about every possible inspiration, Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese, Ancient Greece and Rome, Elizabethan, Moebius or Pulp Sci-Fi from the 60's, giving the whole series a distinctive style and gives Padme Amidala an excuse to show off with all her dresses.
* Boba and Jango Fett and the rest of the Mandalorians.
* KOTOR (both games) plot making you think this shit is actually logical and has so much philosophical background. One of the creepiest depictions of the Universe. Everything is brutal, with big vibrating knives, blood, those machines for Sith snuff movies, more blood, bastards, badass bastards and so on. Everything while somebody is talking with you about existence.
* Our saviour Lord Revan. He's like if [[Horus|fucking Horus]] just became [[Big Bad Evil Guy|fucking bad]] (but not that [[Erebus|bad]]) to fucking destroy the [[Chaos Gods|Dark Gods]] so he can solve his daddy issues.
**but he's more virile, deadly, powerful, charismatic and cool.
* Lightsabers.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi.
* The High Ground.
* TIE fighters. They have the most distinctive scream of any fighter in cinematic history that just yells "I'm evil!". Tell me I'm wrong. I'll wait.
** The fact that they managed to do that using what is essentially a shitty visual pun.
* Most of Episode 3.
* The entirety of Anakin's story, especially when you add the Clone Wars and prequels. While you're at it, watch CinemaWins' perspective on it the series.
* Admiral Ackbar the Memeable!
* Palpatine getting into some Tzeentchian-level scheming and backstabbing in order to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic.
* Grand Admiral Thrawn: So awesome that he rose to a high rank in the anthropocentric Empire despite being an alien and was one of the first (and rare few) things to be imported straight from Legends to Disney.
* Imperial Pilots get a mention, seeing as they fly literal garbage fighters against superior rebel fighters. By garbage, we mean that even the Imperium have better fighter designs than these guys. At least Imperial fighters conserve the life of the fucking pilot.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi again.
* Princess, later Senator Leia Organa; the original badass-yet-hot boss lady in space. Ends up leading two separate, successful underground freedom movements against impossible odds. Did we mention she's a Jedi in both canons?
* Han Solo, who is so badass that hot Leia falls in love. He has the smuggler's best friend, a Wookie, who is also the worst opponent you can face in a [[Chess|Dejarik match]].
* Just... Star Destroyers. When you see a huge, imposing warship from an evil Empire, this is the granddaddy they all look up to.
* Oh, did we mention the lightsabers ?

== See Also: ==
* ''[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/ Darths & Droids]'': A webcomic, made using photo-stills of the ''Star Wars'' movies to tell a story about gamers blundering through each of the six movies in sequence... though not quite exactly how you might expect. Think ''DM of the Rings'' in overall visual style, though unlike ''DM of the Rings'', ''Darths & Droids'' features several heavy twists on the actual events of the films, subplots about the players and their lives outside the game alongside the campaign, and a better overall quality of gamer.
* "[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html/ Endor Holocaust]": An excellent example of the [[skub]] Star Wars can create. Rebuttal: "[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/fanart/endortruth20040810.pdf Endor Rebuttal]"
*[[Timothy Zahn]]
*[[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]]
*[[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*[[Star Wars:Resistance]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

Star Wars

2020-03-13T22:46:54Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* The Books */

{{Star Wars}}
[[File:Star-Wars-Logo (1).jpg|center|500px|]]

{{Topquote|A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....|Star Wars opening text}}
'''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D0ZQPqeJkk/ Star Wars]''' is one of, if not ''the'', most influential media franchises of modern times, let alone its effect on science-fiction and fantasy. Indeed, among [[/tg/|nerddom]], it is challenged by only a few others, like [[Star Trek]] and [[The Lord of the Rings]].

The incredibly ardent fandom is spread worldwide and has a strong presence in popular culture. Many of the characters, like Darth Vader and Yoda, are iconic even to the general public. John Williams' score for the original trilogy is probably the best-known film score of all time. The universe has spawned numerous video games, hundreds of novels, multiple TV shows, one of the largest merchandising franchises ever, and, relevant to /tg/, a whole bunch of board, card, and roleplaying games.

It is also the current leading world source of [[Skub]].

==The Basic Concept==
Star Wars was originally a series of epic science-fantasy "space operas" that roughly followed the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. They're set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," [Note: this makes the entire series a fairy tale] where a mysterious life force called (reasonably enough) the Force permeates everything. This, in turn, can be wielded by certain people, giving them pseudo-magical abilities; thank the Emperor (no, the other one) there were no Commissars in that universe. Those who use it for good become mystical, selfless warrior monks called Jedi, whereas those who use it for evil are ruthless, self-serving bastards called Sith. However, the Force must always be in balance, so any time the Sith arise to cause imbalance, the Jedi have to pull together and take them out to restore the natural order.

The so-called Original Trilogy (made up of films IV through VI, released from 1977 to 1983) followed a young man named Luke Skywalker who becomes a Jedi and re-balances the Force. Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance is fighting to end the oppressive Galactic Empire, which is secretly led by the Sith. Luke and his Rebel companions eventually defeat the evil Emperor Palpatine, but along the way they discover that his lieutenant, Darth Vader, is actually Luke's father. A financial, critical, popular and cultural H-bomb, these movies are basically the filter through which Generation X perceives the world... for better or worse.

The so-called Prequel Trilogy (made up of films I through III, released from 1999 to 2005) explained how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and how the Galactic Empire was established. This involves a lot of convoluted politicking in the Republic, which is then torn apart in the Clone Wars, where the Republic (with an army of clones led by the Jedi) fights against the Confederacy (with an army of robots led by [[Necrons|General Grievous]] and secretly controlled by the Sith). It was not as well received as the first trilogy, for reasons we'll talk about below.

There's also a so-called Sequel Trilogy (made up of film VII and presumably films VIII and IX), which started in 2015 and picked up the story some three decades after the Emperor's defeat with a new generation of heroes taking on the remains of the evil Empire, which is a group of extremist former Imperials calling themselves the First Order. However, Episode VII aka ''The Force Awakens'', was directed by J.J. Abrams, who's mostly known for the [[skub|skubtastic]] [[Star Trek]] reboot, while Episode VIII was written and directed by Ryan Johnson who was a young director known for plot twists and genre experimentation on a handful of movies and television episodes that openly said he wanted to "subvert expectations" and make half of viewers dislike his work, then got pissed when half of them disliked his work. The result managed to fracture the Star Wars fanbase over issues of dull rehashing for VII and a whole laundry list of reasons for VIII (ranging from small ones such as it being too different, to major issues like half the movie being filler), as well as those who still enjoyed them and very little common ground between the three groups.

Finally, there are the so-called Anthology movies, standalone one-shots involving characters and plotlines that aren't a part of the main "Saga" films, except they kind of are. The first, Rogue One (2016), is an immediate prequel to Episode IV that follows those Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans. The second film follows a young Han Solo and pals Chewie and Lando. A third rumored one follows Boba Fett.

There are also three separate TV series. The first one, ''Clone Wars'', was based on traditional animation, whereas the later one, '''''The''' Clone Wars'', was a weird 3D animation. They're both pretty good. There was also a terrible theatrical release that was basically just an advertisement for ''The Clone Wars'', but, since it's even worse than the Prequel Trilogy (hint: babysitting Jabba the Hutt's kid), nobody talks about it much. The third series is Disney's ''"Rebels"'' which is set between Episodes III-IV and it takes itself far less seriously than Clone Wars did, and is more of a homage to the original trilogy since not every character in the series is the owner of a lightsaber nor are they constantly talking about grown-up politics, senators and trade embargoes... pretty much the things that clogged up the plot of the prequel trilogy.

And then there's the whole Expanded Universe, which covers pretty much everything not covered by the films, like the Old Republic (set thousands of years before the prequel trilogy, when there were a hell of a lot more Sith and Jedi around) and the New Republic (set immediately after the original trilogy, explaining what became of all the characters. It could also reach 40k levels of grimdark with races like the [[Dark Eldar|Yuuzhan]] [[Tyranids|Vong]] characters like [[Vampire|Darth Nihilus]] and beings like [[Old Ones|Abeloth]].

The EU is no longer considered in the main canon of the films and TV series, due to the new sequel trilogy which does not follow EU, the reason for this being, according to Disney, that following EU would restrict their creative freedom. The reaction to this was, well, [[skub|mixed, for lack of a better word.]] They've since noted that they'll slot ''some'' of it in on a case-by-case basis, but the canon is in a highly fluid state at the moment. EU is now officially called Star Wars Legends, though most fans still refer to it as EU.

==Why is it so popular?==

Star Wars is as accessible as science fiction gets. It doesn't require extensive knowledge of a fictional world (a la ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' or ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'') or cultural background (as ''[[Star Trek]]'' sometimes does) to make sense. Those elements are present for those who want them, but they largely stay in the (very rich and vibrant) background. It has well-shot action and good ''enough'' dialogue to make it interesting for both kids and adults (as well as allowing parents who grew up with it to watch it with their children, thereby hooking the next generation of viewers). It has simple, good-vs.-evil themes that resonate with almost anyone, anywhere, at any time. The science fiction elements are generally handled well if you don't obsess over making science fiction realistic and hard. It's a prime gateway drug for sci-fi which still holds up to the experienced eye, [[Isaac Asimov]] saw and rather enjoyed the films. All in Fourteen hours of cinema, plus optional sides for those who want it.

There's a ton of merchandise that is, of course, really cool. Also, given it's crossed over into the mainstream, many people feel comfortable being part of the community without feeling judged as "nerds" (as they might with ''Lord of the Rings'', ''D&D'', ''Star Trek'', ''Warhammer'', etc.).

Again, they roughly follow the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. If you think about it, 6 of the 9 films can be summarized as: hero begins his journey under the tutelage of a wise (more or less) man, they encounter a threat which has captured/enslaved a princess/girl, who was in one way or another connected to an important secret (usually a superweapon but could be the identity of a political figure or the location of someone); the heroes save the princess/girl but someone dies tragically in a battle against the villain while someone else is blowing up a space station or a spaceship afterwards they are happy, they celebrate and mourn the loss of the poor bloke who died.

Additionally, the first film can be summarized as a samurai and a gunslinger team up to save a princess from Nazis in space. That is multiple cinematic genres at once, following the style of the epic myth.

==Setting==
Due to article bloat, [[Star Wars Setting]] is now its own page.

==The rise of the original trilogy==

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away....etc etc you all know the lines.

A man called George Lucas had the idea to create a series of epic sci-fi space operas that would become so successful that Disney would take notice and give it the franchise fluttering eye lashes, trying to seduce it.

They would be called... ''Flash Gordon''.

Unfortunately for Georgie boy, and fortunately for modern nerddom, Dino de Laurentiis already owned ''Flash Gordon'', and were busy making their own, hilariously eighties version, so he said, screw it, I'll make my own!

He decided to start with the fourth movie in the series he envisioned, for at the time he didn't have the special effects to create the first three to the standard he wanted, and/or he just kinda made up the first movie as he went along (drawing heavily on Akira Kurosawa's seminal samurai action film, ''Hidden Fortress'' in the process as well as the book [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces''], a complex 1949 Joseph Campbell analysis of the various mythologies of human history all boiled down into the basic archtypes and elements required in heroic myth). So Episode Four ''A New Hope'' was created (simply titled ''Star Wars'' at the time) and it is not an exaggeration to say it changed the face of sci-fi and general moviemaking forever, bringing a new era of special effects and imagination to cinema and changing the lives of many who would go onto to become dedicated fan boys.

Originally, the studio had forced Lucas to take ever-increasing paycuts for what they were sure was going to be a flop, and only let him keep merchandising rights. However, whatever his flaws, George Lucas was a man of vision. Having helped pioneer the summer blockbuster, he went on to do the same to ginormous piles of movie-tie-in memorabilia. His production company, Lucasfilm ended up rolling in dosh, and with Episode Five ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and Episode Six ''The Return of the Jedi'', the legend of Star Wars and its place in cultural history was assured.

tl;dr: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4w7ChpuaM Pretty much this.]

==The coming of the prequel trilogy==
With the year 2000 coming, George Lucas felt that special effects technology had reached the level he wanted and began to create the first three movies in the star wars story he had envisioned. (As a side-note, he also made some touch-ups to the three original films, re-mastering them with special effects and a couple of extra scenes that weren't doable with the eighties' animatronics. But those were mostly accepted/shrugged away since they didn't deeply modify anything.)

The hype for the movies was immense.

And then the first movie, Episode One ''The Phantom Menace'' came out.....and there was nerd rage beyond expectation.

Part of the problem was that the immense expectations of the fandom had grown until anything less-than-perfect simply would not do, so perhaps that is somewhat to blame for the reaction to the prequel trilogy. In a vacuum one has to admit that they aren't completely ''[[Twilight|terrible films]]'' .

Episode Two ''Attack of the Clones'' and Episode Three ''Revenge of the Sith'' followed after a few years each and didn't garner nearly as much hatred, though fans complained they didn't match the greatness of the original trilogy, more concerned with flashy action and effects than competent story-telling; but hooo-boy did it deliver in flashy action, with laser armed [[MI-24 Hind|MI-24's]] full of <s>storm</s>troopers extracting jedi from a coliseum full of shooty killbots.

''Revenge of the Sith'' did, however, receive higher ratings than ''Return of the Jedi'', and is generally seen as the best and most-complete of the three prequel films as a story. Unusually the novelization alters some details and is considered a legitimately good book on its own merits.

What was generally more well received (despite a rocky start with a two hour pilot being pressed into service as a movie and an art style that took some time to gel) during this time for Star Wars was the Clone Wars animated series (both the traditionally-animated ''Clone Wars'' and the later seasons of the CGI show '''''The''' Clone Wars'', the latter which most everyone agrees is what the prequels should have been), following the war between the Republic and the Confederacy that sprung up during the time between the second and third of the prequels.

It'd be ''really'' hard to find a group of movies more skubtastic than the prequel trilogy, and saying a good or bad thing about it in front of the wrong crowd's sure to provoke huge amounts of nerdrage. In defense of the prequel trilogy's sins, they did at least do their own thing. Because of how much money the original trilogy made, practically every form of media in the 80s and 90s aped it to some form or another, and instead of falling back on the same old shit the prequels branched out and tried to get out of the franchise's comfort zone a bit. While a lot of it sucked, it blazed a trail for better writers to follow and helped liven up the universe by showing us the galaxy beyond fuckhueg spaceships and faux-Western shitholes like Tatooine. And all but the most [[Neckbeard|diehard OT purists]] can get behind shit like Naboo architecture, the Clone Army and Mace "The Ace" Windu. From a story perspective the worst sin of the prequels was demystifying the force, and subsequent works have largely swept that detail under the carpet.

==Disney and the sequel trilogy==

Finally, all the efforts by Disney to woo George Lucas paid off and in 2012 Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise for 4 billion dollars and immediately announced they would produce a new trilogy of films set after the original trilogy.

Expectations were almost as high as the private fears of the fans. Bringing on the creative talent behind the [[skub|skubtastic]] ''[[Star Trek]]'' reboot was equally... well, [[skub|take a wild guess]].

For sake of sanity, these section have been condensed. Read at your own peril.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 7: The Mouse Awakens===
''Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens'' debuted in December of 2015, and reception was what you would expect: the film was immediately a massive success from a monetary standpoint as everyone ([[China|almost]]) everywhere rushed to the theaters in response to the hype, with children engaging in as many repeat viewings as their parent's money could allow as fans did the same thing with their own. It has become a financial hit with the general public and a (critically) generally well-reviewed piece, with decent cinematography, special effects, technical stuff, etc. It also went on to become the third biggest financial success in film history (at the time), when not adjusted for inflation.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Fan response was a good deal more mixed. Many criticize the plot for rehashing Episode IV, without doing anything to establish its own identity and claim that it had a bland main character, [[Mary Sue|who had too many abilities]] whereas others find the replication of ''Star Wars'' feel an acceptable trade and praise it for being a decent action film, [[skub|and claim the lead doesn't outdo any of the previous main characters]].

Some would argue that by rehashing the original trilogy it basically nullified the accomplishments of the original crew; the Empire's still around, they've got yet another superweapon, Han & Leia split up, Luke failed to rebuild the Jedi, etc. Other fans praised it simply for being a new Star Wars that was better than the prequel trilogy (expectations were lowered due to those, to be honest). Some see poor storytelling when there was no proper showing of what went on in the galaxy 3 decades since Palpatine died, and not explaining what caused big character changes like why Han returned to his old ways or Luke ran from his friends was critical. Other say this is going to be explained in the next film and people should keep their curiosity. Some argue even with their superweapon, none of the villains feel threatening. Others argue the incompetence of the main villain is a fresh change and the point of the plot will be to see him change, to be more competent, or even learn to become good.

Overall, those against argued JJ Abrams' mystery box approach may do well for a TV series but does not mesh with films that take years to make. Defendants held the position that fans should wait to see whether the next film will do anything with the unexplained plot points.

Coincidentally, when Hamill and Fisher were originally approached by Disney to reprise their roles as Luke and Leia, they ''didn't want to do it'' right from the start. But, they didn't want to give an out-and-out "no" answer either, so they told Disney they'd return if Harrison Ford agreed to return as Han Solo as well. Knowing how much Ford ''hated'' Solo, Hamill and Fisher figured they were safe, until Disney irresistibly sweetened the deal for Ford by agreeing to kill off his character, thus forcing a reluctant Hamill and Fisher to make good on their deal... [[skub|only for the three characters to never appear on the screen at the same time.]] To be fair, Hamill has a history of saying he won’t do something only to immediately agree like he’s making a standard sitcom gag in real life, even if that usually just applies to still voicing the Joker in Batman media.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars Rebels===
Disney also released their own CGI series: ''Star Wars: Rebels'', which is actually pretty ok (considering that it airs on Disney XD, it should be no surprise that they've toned down the graphic depictions of gratuitous violence, much to the chagrin of [[Neckbeards|those who love overly gory deaths]]). It focuses less on the Jedi that have come to dominate the franchise and more on the "boots on the ground" experience of the average characters, and while the show started slow and small, the plot gained momentum as the series progressed, especially after the first season.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Rebel movement starts to grow, several characters return from ''The Clone Wars'', and the enemies the main characters have to face steadily get darker and more dangerous as more of the Empire’s attention gets attracted. When Darth Vader gets involved (played by none other than [[Awesome|James Earl Jones himself]]) he immediately proceeds to [[Awesome|open a 24-pack of unstoppable whoop-ass on the rebel scum]]. The return of Maul resulted in three character deaths (possibly four), the crippling of one main character with another well on his way down the dark side, and to top it all off Maul himself was on the loose once again. Things did not turn out so well [[Grimdark|last time that happened]], so expect the body count to rise, especially with [[Creed|Grand Admiral Thrawn]] now also coming onto the scene. The show also continues the trend set by ''The Clone Wars'' in making the Force mystical again, though whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how you felt about the <s>bullshit</s> <s>scientific</s> [[Skub|skubtastic]] midichlorian explanation of the Prequels. The animation is on point with ''The Clone Wars'', which considering it's Disney should surprise less than nobody. Oh, and Steve Blum voices one of the main characters. However, it is also noted that Star Wars Rebels may indeed have [[Grimdark|dark ending]]. Which, to a degree, it did. An important character dies, and his padawan flees into the unknown regions, leaving us with two other characters to go look for him after the second Death Star blows up.

[[Skub|The way that Filoni (the creator of Rebels and The Clone Wars) has handled the Mandalorians, a fan-favorite warrior-culture based upon the Scots and Vikings, has either been met with praise from those who despised Traviss and her overpowering of said culture, or utter RAGE that he turned many of them into either pacifist morons or bloodthirsty barbarians- usually that particular criticism comes from the Traviss fanboys]]. Do take note, however, that the old ways for the Mandalorians are making their way back into canon, such as the language, the emphasis on martial honor, and the decentralized nature of their government.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars: Rogue One===
December of 2016 brought us the first standalone Star Wars movie, "Rogue One", showing the theft of the original Death Star plans.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

While "Rogue One" can be justly criticized for lacking in character development, that was basically mandated by being set just before another movie whose actors were now 40 years too old to reprise their previous roles. The cast of the movie includes almost no one who appears in Episode IV, and the few familiar faces who do appear show up as cameos. (Fair warning: spoilers)

Accordingly, every main character dies by the end. It still manages to pack quite a lot of [[awesome]] into the movie, with Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk and Darth Vader all used to great effect. Rogue One also answers several questions, plugs several plot holes, and just generally makes A New Hope make a lot more sense in retrospect. (No wonder Vader wasn't impressed when Leia claimed to be on a "diplomatic mission.") It also has the distinctions of being the only Star Wars movie to focus on regular soldiers instead of Jedi, and being more like the original Star Wars than any of the sequels, including the other two of the main trilogy. (The original, back before it was "A New Hope", was a genre mashup of samurai + gunslinger rescue princess from space Nazis, then team up for a World War II dogfight. This one is wuxia cast + heist crew do a heist in a WWII trench warfare war zone. There's surprisingly little 'War' in Star Wars.) Much, much [[Skub]] still exists of course, since no Star Wars movie will ever please all the neckbeards but out of the five post-Disney Star Wars movies released so far, this one is definitely the least divisive and arguably the best of the bunch.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===Episode 8: The Last Royalty Check (aka zomg Luke dies!)===
On December 14 2017, ''Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi'' was released world wide. The critical reception was [[Bullshit|extremely positive]], with many critics considering it the best movie in the series since The Empire Strikes Back. The fan reception has been a great deal more negative and [[Skub|mixed]], and a number of fans are convinced that Disney leaned on media outlets to shill the new movie or else. If you have watched the Empire Strikes Back, you ''WILL'' be [[Rage|disappointed at best]], if you want to see a Star Wars film that would finally expand the characters of Kylo Ren and Rey, you ''WILL'' be satisfied and disappointed at the same time, if you want to watch the film because it is the last film starring the great and wonderful Carrie Fisher, you ''WILL'' feel hollow and sad inside, and if you came to see a pair of lightsaber-wielding punks involved in one of the [[Skub|greatest or worst lightsaber battles of the franchise, you ''WILL'' be pleased or horribly disappointed]]. The Last Jedi is seen as one of the most divisive films in the franchise by the fandom, [[FAIL|which is one hell of an achievement]] considering other films.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The complaints about The Last Jedi are many: the treatment of Luke (which even his actor, Mark Hamill, hated, to the point that he has no interest in playing Luke again), Leia's Superman asspull, Finn's plot arc that serves practically zero purpose and has him undergo the same character arc as the last movie, the forced humor, the complete disregard for established [[fluff]], disregard for even the most basic laws of physics, the fact that the central conflict is essentially the same as the one in the originals right down to the last stand ripped straight out of ''Empire'', the PC bullshit (a hipster admiral who the plot always treats as being in the right despite killing 90% of the Resistance, the Gilded Age planet arc that [[Namek|sucks up a third of the movie to no benefit,]] Rose expressing her desire to get BLACKED with a horrendous and forced #LoveTrumpsHate one-liner in the final act) added solely to virtue-signal and the whole thing being basically a 2,5h screed against the franchise it belongs to and the culture which spawned it.

Fans have also criticized the movie for dropping or discarding major plot points from TFA and repeatedly invoking Shamalamadingdong-tier plot twists for cheap gotchas that are somehow less interesting than the recycled cliches they play off of. Director Rian Johnson has responded by shitting on said critics and trying to defend the film on social media like something out of an ED or RW article. (Important note: George Lucas never tried to defend the prequels, despite the huge backlash at the time, and he agreed with fans that [[C.S Goto|The Star Wars Holiday Special]] was an abomination.) It later came out that Johnson had not been given any kind of roadmap beyond Lucas' old and unfinished concept scripts and was not allowed to see what Abrams had done until TLJ was too far into production to write in most of the previous movie's plot points, which makes the fail Disney's fault just as much as it is Johnson's. Except we also know that he had at least a modicum of influence over the ending of TFA, so they must have talked on at least some degree. As with TFA Lucasfilm has tried to paper over the holes with tie-in material, and just like TFA the fans recognize the damage control.

The Last Jedi has without a doubt torn the fanbase apart in ways even the prequels didn't come close to, with many fans declaring that they have dropped the sequel trilogy. Even Star Wars' famous merchandising has taken a mauling, as [[/toy/]] giggles at Rose Tico and General Hux figures warming shelves while new product shipments go straight from the transport case to the clearance bin.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg_FoEy8T_A I'm Solo, Han Solo, Han Solo]===
On May 25th 2018, the 41st anniversary of the franchise, ''Solo: A Star Wars Story'' was released. The general consensus seems to be that it is the most average film in the series. At the very least, most people agree that it is at least better than The Last Jedi (if barely) and the backlash from that movie can be felt even in Solo: many fans have chosen to boycott the movie. Even before release, many fans had derided the whole affair as unnecessary: no one was really asking for a Han Solo origin movie, particularly one without Harrison Ford. Han Solo's entire life history had already been explored thoroughly in EU novels and comics, so the movie could only be a retread or a retcon, both things most fanbases tend to disapprove of.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Whether it is because of this boycott or not, [[Not as planned|something no one expected happened:]] ''Solo'' was a box office bomb. Its opening weekend performed way below expectations and as of this writing, it has only made half of the money it needs for it to break even. Disney still continued to labor under the delusion that China would save their bottom line regardless of the fact that Star Wars has never been popular in China.

So what is it like? Well, rather than being a space opera like the other films, this is a space Western. Rather than being about large-scale battles and saving the galaxy from tyranny, it's about heists and the galactic underworld. (Except for the Mimban sequence, which you'd swear was lifted from a live-action Imperial Guard movie.) It's essentially Disney's reboot/retcon of the old EU Han Solo novels, taking things that were mentioned offhand in the original trilogy (like how Han did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs) and making that the subject of an entire movie. The film was perhaps cursed from the beginning due to its [[Fail|troubled production.]] How troubled? The lead needed an acting coach to get through his shoots (Han may have walked away with the Falcon, but Danny Glover's Lando stole the spotlight every time) and 70% of the movie had to be reshot by a different director due to [[Butthurt|creative differences]] between Lucasfilm and the original directors.

The fail only compounded when it premiered and fans got to see what those "creative differences" may have wrought: the writing staff started spewing bullshit to the press about Lando being "pansexual" with no precedent in any Star Wars production including ''Solo'', the film's tone is a schizophrenic nightmare to the last-minute reshoots and Han's sidekick for most of the movie is [[What|a self-built female droid social justice warrior]] named [[/v/|L3-37]]. Audiences ''cheered and applauded'' when that <s>man</s>human-hating self-insert character finally fucking died. Perhaps the most damning sin is that these are the movie's only notable qualities: take them away and you're left with a movie that would make you think "Huh, that was okay," and then never think about it again for the rest of your life, were it not for the crippling disappointment of seeing one of the most beloved franchises in the world fall so far. Between the boycotts, the mediocrity of the movie itself, and [https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Gawker certain news outlets] claiming that the driving force behind said boycotts was [[/pol/]], ''Solo'' cratered so badly that [[Exterminatus|all non-''Episode 9'' Star Wars movies were for a short time shelved indefinitely, and the only side-movie still being worked on is the obligatory Boba Fett origin movie, which is more likely to sell tickets based on the name alone.]] Incidentally, one of the writers picked by Lucasfilm to handle ''Solo'''s tie-in content, Cavan Scott, has been hired by [[Games Workshop]] for the [[Warhammer Adventures]] series.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker (aka Plan Palpa-Nine from Outer Space)===
Your opinion of this movie is very easy to predict based on what you thought of the others; if you found The Last Jedi to be "refreshing", you'll absolutely HATE this one. If you hate all Disney content aside from ''maybe'' The Mandalorian, you'll hate this one as much as the others. If you absolutely detested The Last Jedi but have mixed opinions of the rest, you'll probably consider this to be the best of the new movies to varying degrees of actual enthusiasm. The movie largely undoes or ignores swathes of the previous one.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

After finishing shooting, the film was shown to test audiences (which JJ Abrams lied never happened). The film was extremely poorly received, one of many reasons being because it had [[Mary Sue|Rey curb-stomping Palpatine by herself in the final battle]] (test audiences reportedly either laughing at the film or had to be stopped from walking out of the test screenings). The poor showing made (then) Disney CEO Bob Iger - who was overseeing the screening - furious, and he immediately ordered the film to be reshot. The resulting reshoots were so extensive, [http://archive.ph/RLj94 they spanned months and the film didn't have a final edit till December 2019, the month of release], causing trailers to be so desperate for footage that wouldn't be cut they had to fill half the length with footage from prior films and stuff used in prior trailers. Further complicating matters was that the ''very stupid'' plot was leaked months before release. Despite extensive denials from Disney and media outlets, the leaks were proven correct by getting then unrevealed names and plot objects right. Camera leaks the week before release showed very little of the fantastically stupid content leaked months beforehand was changed, only minor details.

Before reading on, be aware that Rey and Kylo are no longer movie-type Force users, they have been changed to video game characters. Like KOTOR and Jedi Academy type where you just get powers by killing enough dudes. None of the powers are new to the franchise, but have been rarely seen and in some cases never before have in movies. You should also know that unlike the first Visual Dictionary that mostly just gave little prop trivia and plot hooks for other works, and the second which was mostly irrelevant until it gets referenced in a decade or two, the final Visual Dictionary is damn near required reading (this shit will get a "VD" to indicate it) since a lot of explanations were cut in the reshoots and recuts. Like for example the connection between Rey and Kylo is a "Force Dyad", basically one soul in the Force that inhabits two bodies (setting up a bit of a snarl what happens when one dies and not the other, and implying the personality is mostly in the brain which is why they can have unique experiences, but whatever) and warps space/time. This is why Rey was inexplicably powerful and knew how to do shit instinctively, because Kylo's training passed onto her, and likewise her nonstop playing with X-Wing training sims as a child made him a badass pilot. Dyads used to be far more common in the KOTOR era, and were apparently the inspiration for the Sith Rule Of Two. This is never mentioned in the final cut of the film, but leaks show it was in one of the earlier ones.

The movie pressed on with breakneck speed that doesn't have time for musical interludes or wipe transitions, the opening crawl informing you that Palpatine has somehow returned and sent a message to the galaxy with the Resistance trying to rebuild and gather information, Rey being trained by Leia on the planet Ajan Kloss (AKA not!Yavin #2, VD) after repairing Anakin's lightsaber (VD) who had received partial training from Luke before stopping for reasons explained later in the movie and supplementing the rest with her pouring over the Jedi texts, and Kylo Ren trying to find Palpatine because his existence is a threat to his rule. The movie takes a lot of inspiration from KOTOR era lore with Ren finding a Sith McGuffin Holocron-type navigation device on Mustafar (VD) showing him the secret planet of the Sith (not Korriban/Pesegam/Moraband, this one is a planet in a red nebula that is under constant lightning storms called Exegol). There he finds a MASSIVE Sith cult that has kept itself secret and managed to not only build a fucking massive fleet of Star Destroyers equipped with planetkiller guns like something straight out of the old canon, but divisions of Stormtroopers, technicians, and officers to fill them along with the typical cultists in robes who administer to keeping Palpatine alive and seeing to his Sith alchemy shit...which includes tanks containing multiple clones of Snoke, revealing the guy was literally born looking like that with a manufactured backstory all so Palpatine could use him as a puppet to create the First Order (which is almost a meta commentary about the backstory controversy).

Kylo is offered the chance to be the new Emperor by Palpatine, who is a corpse kept barely alive through methods some would consider... Unnatural, while strapped to a machine with [[Lord Kroak|his spirit sticking nearby]] (the filmmakers zig-zagged on the nature of this; first it was the original Palpatine who had somehow duped everyone in ''Return of the Jedi'' with a clone stand in, then the reshoots changed it to the original's zombie-like rotting corpse animated by his lingering spirit and Lucasfilm later retconned him to be a zombie-like clone of Palpatine after the film's release). The only requirement for Palps to pass him Emperorship is killing Rey, although Ren is immediately suspicious of the other strings attached (including choking a guy in a hissyfit when that concern is voiced) and decides instead to recruit Rey again, this time as a co-Emperor.

Finn and Poe obtain information about a spy within the First Order (yeah, you know its fucking Hux even before they say there is a spy at all) while Rey gets visions during her training with Leia. The spy confirms that Palpatine is legit and the info about the fuckmassive deathfleet is legit, and Rey finds the Jedi texts contain notes from Luke about his search for that planet. They go to his last clue, a desert planet that isn't Tatooine and is the middle of a festival where they find Lando has been holed up enjoying himself since him and Luke traveled there. They are immediately spotted by the First Order and escape from them to find the ship of one of Palpatine's servants who had last been seen there. They fall into sinkholes around the ship created by giant tunneling worms, and find the skeleton of Sheev's boy as well as a Sith dagger. 3PO is programmed with the Sith language, but his programming from the Old Republic era forbids him from giving the translation to civilians. Rey manages to get the sand worms to leave them alone by using Force powers to heal one's wound, and they attempt to get the Sheev's servant's ship up and running before they are attacked by the First Order. Chewie is taken prisoner and Rey wrecks Kylo's TIE Fighter before the two engage in a Force tug of war to pull the transport Chewie is on, which ends in Rey accidentally Force Lightning it and causing it to explode when she becomes frustrated with the stalemate. Chewie is revealed to have been on another transport and is taken to Ren's flagship Star Destroyer while the heroes, instead of do something sensible like seek a Rebel leader who can give security clearance for 3PO's protocol (Leia's the obvious choice), they head to a planet under VERY Nazi-like occupation to find a droid technician who can hack 3PO's memory. They encounter a woman from Poe's past, revealing he was a former spice smuggler like Han until abandoning his crew (causing them to fall into debt and become bitter at him) to join the Resistance. She threatens to turn the group in to pay off their debt [[Mary Sue| but Rey kicks her ass, earning her respect and she takes them to the technician without further incident.]] The technician unlocks 3PO's memory at the cost of wiping him. The translation reveals the dagger is the key to finding the Sith navigation McGuffin they are looking for. During this BB-8 reactivates Sheev's servant's old droid, who doesn't do much.

The heroes proceed to board Ren's flagship with the help of a First Order officer's badge, and shoot their way through as they free Chewie. Rey and Ren have another linked vision where her parents are revealed to have attempted to hide her from her grandfather Palpatine, who wanted to merge the souls of himself and '''ALL''' other preceding Sith (presumably not Revan, since his redemption is canon) while he discovers they are on his ship and orders it put on lockdown. Rey is confronted in the hangar by Ren, who offers her to join him again. She refuses and the Falcon appears, the engines blowing away the Stormtroopers while Rey jumps aboard. The crew head to Endor after finding out from Sheev's servant's old droid that it was where he was going to go next (this is the only thing the droid does other than serve as a "pet the dog moment" for the cast a few times) where the Death Star wreckage of the disk and throne room landed, encountering a division of former child-soldier Stormtroopers like Finn who went AWOL. The dagger has a slide-out metal prong from the handle which perfectly lines up with the corridor leading to Sheev's throne room. The team work on repairing the Falcon while Rey presses on ahead, alone, to the Death Star wreckage. Once in the throne room a hidden door opens, revealing a sanctum full of crystal mirrors that are the same as the ones she saw in her vision in Force Awakens (the scene where she snaps her fingers and all the mirrored ones do as well). There she finds the Sith McGuffin and gets a "The Cave" vision of herself as a Sith with a red double-bladed lightsaber which she fights. Kylo is waiting for her in the throne room, and crushes the Sith McGuffin in his hand before informing her they are linked in the Force as one soul inhabiting two bodies and offering her again to be the Vader to her Palpatine which she again refuses. The two fight while Finn and one of the Stormtroopers try to rescue her. They fight their way onto the remnants of the Death Star hangar, reminiscent of Anakin and Obi-wan in Revenge Of The Sith with water instead of lava, before Ren freezes as he senses his mother start to die. This pause gives Rey time to grab his lightsaber and stab him before she freezes sensing Leia actually pass away. Rey uses the Force to heal him, then steals his TIE Fighter while Poe and Finn return to the Resistance base. Rey initially attempts to hide on Luke's monastery to let Palpatine's bloodline die with her, but after lighting Kylo's TIE on fire (so she's destroyed 2 of his personal TIE at this point) Luke appears as a Force ghost to tell her <strike>Rian Johnson</strike> he was wrong, and was motivated by fear when he tried to hide. He reveals that all the Jedi who came before are rooting for her, and tells her where Leia's lightsaber is hidden. He reveals she stopped her training because in a vision she saw that her son would be destroyed by the Dark Side, and a Light Side counterpart would take up her blade instead. Meanwhile, Kylo is visited by the memory of Han. The two reenact the scene from Force Awakens, only this time Kylo throws his lightsaber into the sea and renounces the name Kylo Ren to become simply Ben again. Meanwhile the First Order blow up Poe's home planet where the droid technician and Poe's old crew were, although they had managed to get offworld by that point. Also, R2-D2 restores C-3PO's memory wipe by finding a backup which contains everything from before the mission.

Luke lifts his X-Wing from the waves and Rey scavenges the Sith McGuffin from the flaming wreck of Kylo's ship. As she proceeds to the Sith planet she sends out a beacon to track her progress, giving the entire galaxy a map to the Sith fleet. Poe, now leader of the Resistance, sends Lando with the Falcon and Nien Nunb to gather any forces they can, all the ones who refused to aid them in The Last Jedi, while the rest of the Resistance gears up to attack Sheev's fleet before they can leave the storm cloud. The initial plan is to destroy the navigation device which orients them to the rest of the galaxy without which the fleet cannot leave, until the commander of the flagship (a former Imperial officer) realizes what they are doing and orders it to be shut down so his own ship could serve as the navigation for the rest. Rey confronts Sheev in a coliseum/throne room full of the Cultist parents of the personnel of the fleet (VD) and is informed of his plan to have her kill him so all the Sith could merge with her and rule as basically the God Emperor of Star Wars. She raises her lightsaber before using the strange wormhole Force connection thing they have to pass it to Ben, who had gotten there with a salvaged TIE from the Death Star wreckage and was being beaten by his former servants, the Knights Of Ren. Armed with Luke's old lightsaber he kills them and proceeds to the throne room. Ben arrives and the two attempt to fight him. He simply Force Pushes them back and forces them to kneel before draining a portion of their souls, the "two bodies one soul" thing apparently being a massive source of Force power he can heal himself with to rule in his own rejuvenated body again (but with Darth Maul eyes) rather than Rey's. Meanwhile, the ex-Stormtroopers and Resistance ground personnel lead by Finn land on the flagship Star Destroyer (its still in the atmosphere of the Sith planet, thus gravity and breathable air applies) and due to bringing goat-horse things from Endor are not affected by onboard EMP that would otherwise short out speeders and tanks (which is a thing from past canon, mostly comics and novels, which they use to explain why such a thing doesn't happen more often). Meanwhile, Lando appears with a fucking enormous fleet (remember the backstory that the New Republic didn't have a fleet, instead paying for every planet to have a militia of their own which would unite when there was a big enough threat? Well, JJ finally remembered because all those fucks show up alongside a neat little game of "spot that ship from the series you know" in a few shots). They begin attacking the superweapons underneath the Star Destroyers directly, causing chain reactions that blow the entire ship.

Ben is Force-pushed by Sheev into a pit as revenge for how Vader did the same thing to him before taunting the dying Rey and unleashing a MASSIVE Force Lightning storm which shorts out the fleet. While this is going on the spirits of all the dead Jedi (like pretty much anyone they could find to record a line from any of the past movies or shows, including Ahsoka; which is pretty lame since it means she was killed off-screen, with natural causes being unlikely since Ahsoka wouldn't have been 80 yet, and even that's below the average Togruta life expectancy, though this may not necessarily be the case according to Filoni) who inhabit her body the same way that Palpatine is currently full of all the Sith. Rey manages to stand and deflects his Force Lightning with Leia's lightsaber, which isn't enough until Ben manages to climb out of the pit and throw her Luke's lightsaber; with the two together she's able to walk close enough to Sheev for his Force Lightning to burn him, and despite this being the third fucking time this has happened he does not turn off the lightning and instead Raiders Of The Lost Ark's himself into a skeleton before blowing up and destroying not only himself but the spirits of all the past Sith. Despite Palpatine's plan being to possess Rey when she kills him, for some reason he doesn't do so. The Jedi spirits leave Rey and she dies, with the barely lingering on Ben healing her. They share a kiss (reminder that since Sheev created Anakin, they're basically cousins, and their relationship is so adversarial it makes Edward and Bella's from Twilight look healthy, something the novelization tries to claim is "purely platonic") before Ben dies. His body vanishes, as does Leia's. The Resistance/Militia fleet destroy all the Star Destroyers after Finn's ground crew hijacks one of the cannons of the flagship to shoot at the ship bridge, killing the last of the old Empire and First Order leadership.

The heroes return to the Resistance planet where they celebrate, scenes showing the rest of the galaxy shooting the last of the First Order Star Destroyers play, Chewie is given Han's old medal from A New Hope, and the ex-Stormtrooper leader is hinted to be Lando's daughter or grandaughter implying a spinoff with the two. After the celebrations Rey returns to Luke's old home on Tatooine where she buries Anakin and Leia's lightsabers, revealing she built her own from her Force vision only with yellow blades instead of red ones. An old woman who was a neighbor of Owen and Beru comments nobody had been to that place in years and asks Rey's name. Seeing the Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia, she tells the woman her name is Rey Skywalker. The End.

Because god knows this fandom can no longer agree on fucking anything anymore, there was immediately fan wars going on everywhere Star Wars fans are found. Fans accused haters of review bombing, those who hated the movie claimed the critic score (which, if you recall, is mostly people who liked The Last Jedi and hate this movie for doing a U-turn on it) vindicates them. The fan fighting probably won't ever end, since now we apparently have to reevaluate if A New Hope and the Kenner Star Wars toys were ever good in the first place because some contrarians now claim the prequels are the pinnacle of Star Wars. Whatever the case, Disney CEO Bog Iger resigned in the middle of the work week in late February 2020, indicating that the backlash and fan alienation had a deeper impact than anticipated.
</div>
</div>

==Expanded Universe==

It can be said what makes a franchise into a long term lasting thing is when a wealth of extra story and background is created that expands on the original story far beyond what there was. It could be argued Star Wars leads the race in this, as the sheer amount of extra novels, graphic novels and games based on Star Wars can and does overwhelm the ordinary fan.

===The original EU/Star Wars "Legends"===

[[Image: Choices_of_One_PB_art.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Before Cara, before Rey, before Ashoka, Nomi Sunrider or Padme... there was Mara Jade]]
The background has expanded into the distant past before the founding of the current Jedi and Sith orders and into the (not-quite-so) far future looking at the descendants of Luke Skywalker and other popular characters. Uniquely, especially considering [[Warhammer 40K|other]] [[Star Trek|franchises']] track records, the Star Wars Expanded Universe is <strike>remarkably</strike> <strike>sorta</strike> sometimes internally consistent, both with other sources within the universe and with the films themselves, at least in comparison to other comparable settings. Of course, it's got plenty of its own [[C. S. Goto|problem children]] that slipped through, and the [[skub]] mine of it all isn't much shallower than that of 40K. Good portions of it do hold up well, largely due to the efforts of Lucas' company's continuity department leaning on everyone to hold it together. One thing that greatly helps is continuity books and articles aren't afraid to make small retcons to make even the most obscure and shitty sources (like that terrible PS1 fighting game) seem like part of an organized plot. Particularly well-loved parts include characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn (a rare alien officer in the Empire and popular enough that Disney brought him back to the canon from the EU) and Mara Jade (a Force-using former agent of Emperor Palpatine who later turned good, became a Jedi Master, married Luke and had a son with him) - interestingly both were created by the same author [[Timothy Zahn]].

Upon their acquisition, Disney said "fuck it" and threw out everything but the films and the Clone Wars cartoons. Some popular old stuff got mentions or appearances (and Thrawn got to be a major character), but the overall quality is even lower than the old EU. What was set up as a major book contains phrases like "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air" and random virtue signalling. As though to top the previous, Disney literally published a book with an entire chapter about mass wedding farts (Yes. Really.). The only good stuff is from established EU authors writing stuff far away from era of the Disney films.

The [[rage]] over the EU's scrapping was major among many fans of it, but for all Disney's shortcomings, they were in a tight spot. Towards the end all that continuity and consistency got thrown out the airlock for increasingly dumb and disjointed narratives and garbled plot threads to the point that the Star Wars logo was just about as much a sign of quality as the Nintendo approval stamp on shitty SNES games. Though they have their fans, particularly contentious parts include the grimdark invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong - forcenull space-Druchii (no no, not Comorrites though they have the pain and body modification fetishes for it, space-'''Druchii''', riding enslaved tyranid bioships) from another galaxy, a personal-sized spaceship that could blow up whole galaxies and destroy fleets on its own, Mnggal-Mnggal - mindraping gelatin lost on its way to Star Trek, and Abeloth - an ancient (she predates the Jedi and the Sith) yandere Force entity who wandered in from the Cthulhu Mythos and is so dangerous the Jedi and the Sith '''joined forces''' to fight her. It's difficult to envision how Disney could have kept the EU when even before all that it was struggling to find a market beyond the most [[neckbeards|dedicated fans]].

===The Books===

'''The Good EU'''
[[Image: Heir-to-the-empire-cover.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Heir to the Empire (1991): The book that started it all]]
* '''The Thrawn Trilogy''': The origination point for the EU, and focuses on the conflict with the Imperial remnants left over after RotJ. Named for the main villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, who went on to become one of Star Wars most well-loved characters. Basically the story "The Force Awakens" wishes it was. Also introduced Mara Jade, a sexy redhead that's everything Disney wishes Rey was and more.
* '''The Han Solo Adventures''': Star's End was the second spinoff book written and the first good one. Han and Chewie are trying to get some work done on the Falcon and wind up having to bust out some political prisoners to pay for it. Would have made for a better film than ''Solo'' did.
* '''Shadows of the Empire''': Shadows is set between ESB and RotJ and fills in the details of getting the Death Star II's plans, finding out where Han was taken, Luke building his own saber, etc by the introduction of another bounty hunter by the name of Dash Rendar. The Special Edition rerelease of ''A New Hope'' added the Outrider to the background of one scene. Most notable for the fact that it was also adapted into a video game for the N64 and PC.
*'''The Darth Bane Trilogy''': The origin of the Rule of Two for the Sith, along with a compelling protagonist and his apprentice.
* '''Revenge of the Sith''': The novelization is actually considered a serious improvement over the movie itself.

'''The Bad EU'''
* '''Jedi Academy Trilogy''': Luke sets up his academy on Yavin IV and tries to teach [[Rage|Kyp Durron]]. Imperial remnant superweapons hit ludicrous territory with the sun crusher. This was the beginning of Kevin J Anderson hammering out a couple dozen Star Wars books over about four years.
* '''Young Jedi Knights Series''': Set between Jedi Academy and New Jedi Order, mostly follows Han & Leia's kids.
* '''I, Jedi''': A retelling of the Jedi Academy Trilogy (see above) with more of Corran Horn from the first set of X-Wing books. Less derp in general but significantly more [[Mary Sue]]age of Horn.
* '''Legacy of the Force''': The survivors of the Yuuzhan Vong War are trying to rebuild the galaxy, but Jacen Solo turns Sith and becomes the main villain. The book series is infamous for nearly killing the Star Wars EU, threatening the franchise and issues between various writers years before Disney went down the same road (Jacen Solo was also a major influence for Kylo Ren). The biggest complaints were Jacen killing Mara, the heroes becoming idiots whenever they could've stopped the villains, poor dialogue, long-winded writing and the story being overstuffed with allusions to post 9/11 United States.

'''The [[Skub]] EU'''
* '''New Jedi Order''': The longest-running (19 books long) and most divisive story of the EU. Luke's married to Mara and they're rebuilding the Jedi Order while Han and Leia are trying to reconcile the New Republic and Imperial Remnants. Han and Leia are also raising three kids and Mara's got a terminal illness. Then extragalactic aliens called Yuuzhan Vong - [[Imperium of Man|religious fanatics]] with [[Tyranids|organic technology]], a thing for [[Dark Eldar|pain and body modification]] along with [[Culexus|partial immunity to The Force]] - start a war to conquer the Star Wars Galaxy. Chewie dies Majora's Mask style, Mara's illness is cured and she gives birth to Ben Skywalker, the Vong take over Coruscant, lots is learned about the Force and the bodycount goes so high it could give Warhammer 40k a run for its money (365 TRILLION; only the War in Heaven or the Fall of the Eldar had anywhere near that many deaths in one event). A real love-it-or-hate-it series, some parts were good, some were bad and some were weird.
* '''Dark Empire''': Palpatine's back to save a dying franchise decades before Disney tried it. Starts off good, falls apart fast. Known for its love-it-or-hate-it artstyle and dialogue.
* '''Courtship of Princess Leia''': Deals with another Imperial remnant. This one has force witches. It's also ''really'' silly. If you like that, raise this higher. If not, it might even drop lower.
* '''Fate of the Jedi''': People are growing dissatisfied with the Jedi Order following LotF. Luke, Ben and the remaining Jedi are trying to fix things just as a Sith Tribe emerges from hiding. Things take a turn for cosmic horror when a yandere, Force-using eldritch abomination who could doom the galaxy escapes her prison. The Sith apprentice Vestara rises through the ranks and finds herself in a Catwoman/Batman situation with Ben Skywalker. While being an OoM better than the preceding trilogy, FotJ has a very divided opinion among SW fans.

=== Disney Canon ===
[[Image:Star_Wars_Disney_Princesses.jpg|right|400px|thumb|Love it or hate it, they are now official ''Disney Princesses''.]]
It's still [[skub|debatable]] whether or not the new Canon holds up to the old EU, or learns to fix the problems that plagued it. We probably won't see what comes of it for decades to come. Disney Canon, as of 2020, seems to largely be built around the nine main movies (of course), with shows like Rebels and Clone Wars alongside anthology movies fleshing out stories that had been told in comics and books back before the Disney buy-up, but can now be seen on film.

A curious thing that has begun happening: Certain elements of the old EU is slipping into the Disney Canon. Plotlines like the Emperor returning, the Death Star plans heist and Han's path to become the smuggler we know him as all have bits and pieces from EU canon in them. In some cases, whole characters are ported in; the best example is Admiral Thrawn, who appears in Rebels. Other times, popular characters has their traits or stories ported into new ones (Finn and Cassian are both expies of Kyle Katarn, for example). This gives some credence to the argument that Lucasfilms and Disney wanted to wipe the slate with all the stories that had been told in the EU, so they could create their own, fully realized canon Star Wars setting that one could make movies - ''many'' movies - from. Considering the amount of shitty fan-fiction-esque stories the EU had, this may be for the best, but of course, storylines that people have loved for ages are also thrown out with the bathwater.

Now. Detractors of Disney-era Star Wars often talk loads about how the sequel trilogy invalidates the original trilogy, or how Disney screwed over Luke or ignored cool characters like Kyle Katarn. These are semi-valid arguments of course, but they ignore some of the biggest issues with the EU originally - it wasn't sponsored by George Lucas and Lucasfilms. They were sponsored fan-fiction in a sense, semi-canon from the outset and not really something that could be considered a part of the Star Wars setting. In fact, George never really considered them real stories; more like a parallel universe of his own Star Wars works. He accepted it because they bring in the big bucks when people would beg to have the official Star Wars logo on anything they produced.

That, and the sequel trilogy, underwhelming as it may be, was George's idea in broad strokes. The series was always going to have a sequel trilogy, and while the outcome isn't exactly what he (or we) wanted, quite a lot of it is. Luke being an exile on a far-away planet, who has to be roused to fight by a new, female Jedi? George's idea, not Disney's. If anything, much of the direction comes from Lucasfilms; Disney just wants the movie to sell well. It's similar with Marvel nowadays.

So for better or worse, the Disney Canon is the first time the wider setting of Star Wars beyond the series and movies have become irrevocably canon, rather than "kinda-sorta-canon". Much of what we've gotten that is new is based roughly on George's own work as well. Remember this when discussing EU vs Disney in Star Wars - Either setting is cool for their own reasons, but the Mouse got little to do with it - and if you don't like it, bring it up with big man Lucas. Whatever the case, with Bob Iger's resignation as CEO from Disney (likely not on his terms, as he stated multiple times he would retire in 2021), things are changing (for better or worse).

==Star Wars:The Television Shows==
===Star Wars:The Clone Wars===
Technically, there are two series called similar titles. The first was 2004's ''Star Wars: Clone Wars'', an animated miniseries made by Genndy Tartakovsky (He of Dexter's Lab and [[Samurai Jack]] fame) chronicling, among other things, the titular Clone Wars and introducing a much more sinister General Grievous to the world.

But then we have ''The Clone Wars'', a CGI animated series (and tie-in movie) that we'll be talking about more and contributed more to the EU. One of the most universally known and loved parts of Star Wars, most fans worth their action figures and limited edition movie sets have watched the show and have an opinion on it one way or another. Some of the most notable characteristics are:

* The Clone Troopers are fleshed out,and we see that they are manly motherfuckers who make Guardsmen's balls of steel look like the cardboard their armor is made out of (seriously, in the movie, they literally charge straight into close combat with ''giant armored walkers with large guns'' and jump off roofs to get top of them to shoot them point blank, and punch droids in the face)
* Anakin Skywalker is actually a good, fleshed out character, with a good voice actor and shows his descent to child-murdering Force-choking asshat wasn't just him going 'welp, guess I'll fall to the Dark Side.' There was a fair amount of bad-cop “it was him or me” murder to get there.
* Introduces Ashoka Tano, a major character who's a female Togruta Jedi that's well-written, non-OP, non-Mary Sue and doesn't invalidate characters from the movies. Starts off a bit annoying in the Clone Wars movie, but manages to do something truly special: she ''learns''. Over the course of Clone Wars and Rebels, Ashoka probably has the most character development out of any other Star Wars character.
* Obi-Wan being a sexy one-liner spouting sarcastic badass.
* And many others.

However, there were some pretty derp moments too, such as

* Babysitting episode/movie.
* D-squad, where a bunch of droids become heroes of the Republic.
* Mandalore and how it's fluff was basically screwed 180 degrees, and then some.
* Droids were comic relief of the first and second seasons. It was annoying.

All in all, it was an good show that took some time to find it's feet.

After many years, a seventh season was been announced in an attempt to take away from ''The Last Jedi'' being shit and add ''something'' to the empty Disney Plus lineup. At least some of the episodes will be ones that were in production when the show ended. It promptly disappeared after that announcement for a couple years till it was announced it's coming out in 2019.

===Star Wars: Rebels===
[[Image:WomanYellingAtLothcat.jpeg|right|400px|thumb|''Stop fooling our plan, you rebel scum!'']]
Now that Disney owns Star Wars they can't go a season without something new to run on Disney XD, so after ''The Clone Wars'' ended they needed a series to milk episodes out of and launched ''Rebels''. ''Rebels'' is set a few years before ''A New Hope'' and covers the early formation of the rebellion from the perspective of one cell focused on the planet Lothal. If you liked ''Rogue One'' but thought it should be about 25 hours long and done in cartoony CGI then this is the show for you.

So what did we see in ''Rebels''?

* Grand Admiral Thrawn makes his debut in Disney Star Wars, along with the TIE Defender project. The character doesn’t lose much in the translation, and later on is arguably treated better than the source.
* The bearded old guy in the Endor strike team in RotJ turns out to be Captain Rex. Fan theory at first, later confirmed.
* You CAN [[combi-weapon]] a lightsaber and a blaster, and it's OP as shit
* Force wolves (no, not [[Rune Priest|those force wolves]])
* [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones-style]] Mandos (Krownest is pretty much Space-Winterfell).
* Imperial Inquisitors. Sure they don’t last long, but they were intimidating while they were, and it planted the seed that was used elsewhere.
* Some good appearances by Darth Vader.

So about the wolves... ''Rebels'' turns the force mysticism up past 11. Forget just being precog space monks with laser swords; as far as ''Rebels'' is concerned the Jedi are [[craftworld]] [[eldar]] without the racism. Rebels picks up the torch of the Clone Wars “Force Gods” and mixes in some of the straight-up fantasy shit from the Lucas era novels and the KOTOR/Old Republic Jedi philosophy schools and heresies beyond just “Light good, Dark bad”.

However, there were levels of derp that we got to see in this show, such as the following:

* Since this is a Disney cartoon, the bad guys can't have even a temporary victory. This changes Thrawn and the other Imperials from an imposing force to [[Abbadon|cartoon villains]], although Rebels villains manage to stay intimidating more than Grievous did in Clone Wars.
* Battles slower paced than a Death Guard movement phase. Enjoy characters having full conversations in cover-based shooting when everyone has Stormtrooper aim.
* Lightsabers the shape of toothpicks.
* [[Bullshit|Helicopter lightsabers]]
* Complete bipolarity in tone. This can create some great moments, but invariably ruins the mood episode by episode, or between the A and B plots.
* Iron Squadron. Just...fucking [[Rage|Iron Squadron]]
* Star Destroyers look terrible, mostly due to their bridge towers being way taller than they should be.

All in all, it depends on your preference.

Since the show does have a fair amount of dedicated fans, <strike>likely</strike> possibly more than the sequel trilogy itself, Disney has made a habit of planting Easter Egg references to Rebels in basically everything moving forward, usually in the form of an appearance by the iconic ship The Ghost or the friendly-ish space pirate character Hondo Ohnaka.

===Star Wars: Resistance===
Annnd they had to go and change things again. With ''Rebels'' coming to a close and a burning need to keep Star Wars on their lineup, Disney had a choice: find a new plot and setting for a formula and art style that had produced two successful multi-season shows, or throw it all out and start from scratch. Remember, this is Disney we're talking about, the company that once [[Fail|paid a quarter billion dollars to fire the producer who made ''The Little Mermaid'', ''Beauty and the Beast'', ''Aladdin'', and ''The Lion King'']] only for him to go and [[profit|found Dreamworks]] out of spite.

Like its predecessor, ''Star Wars: Resistance'' sets itself up as a prequel to a trilogy, in this case following the early days of the Resistance in its fight against the First Order. Where it differs from ''Rebels'' is that ''Resistance'' is playing the warm up act for a trilogy that nobody likes. On top of which, the creators abandoned the 3D style that ''Rebels'' inherited from ''The Clone Wars'', and replaced it with a cel style that's half ''Treasure Planet'', half ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' and all ''RWBY''.

To be blunt, this show is 100% pure crystal derp. Our star is Kazuda Xiono, a manic depressive who literally fanboy-ed his way into being a spy under the cover story of being a mechanic, two jobs he is not qualified for. This kid is the Invader Zim of Star Wars. Filling out the cast we have the original only cockney girl in space, an autistic alien, their widower boss who is definitely gonna die, D.Va and her ex-imperial officer dad, and BB-8. Poe Dameron shows up regularly so he can be Ace Fucking Rimmer without having to compete against Rey for the TOP SUE trophy. Reception was so terrible it was confirmed canceled at 2 seasons before the second season even started.

Part of the problem with ''Resistance'' is that the First Order has a doomfort that can frag planets across the galaxy, yet has to resort to hiring pirates to encourage settlements into accepting the First Order's protection racket. Palpy's empire was a model of efficient, heavy handed governance; its evil intent veiled from the masses who mostly resent it for bringing order. The First Order on the other hand is basically just Cobra Command, a font of evil hamstrung by flailing incompetence. As mentioned earlier, the backstory for the Resistance and First Order is basically that the First Order are a mobile pirate fleet with one untested secret base weapon lead by old farts of dubious actual leadership abilities from the Empire and their fanatical children with grunts made up of brainwashed child soldiers kidnapped from pioneer settlements while the Resistance is just a tiny militia that is so poorly funded they don’t even qualify as a single fleet since their few outdated capital ships are crewed by outdated droids and they don’t even have enough fighters to protect them, but rather than depict the potentially interesting dynamic this suggests the series just tries to be Rebels again, the same path the movies took even though at this point both factions are even smaller than they were in the movies.

===Star Wars: The Mandalorian===

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti western's so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up. Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well know spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Adeptus_Arbites|Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way" their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times, (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing). The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand awesome.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Jedi''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

==Wookieepedia==
One of the largest fan wikis ever created, this bad boy is extensively cited, has enormous variety, and has page upon page of talk. It was if Lexicanum, the 40k fan wiki, and our own glorious site were fused into a terrible beast.

==Impact on 1d4chan and associated games etc==

Star Wars has had subtle and clear impacts on a number of other franchises and genres and it can be ''incredibly'' hard to gauge the extent of it all. Certainly it didn't create the concepts of sci-fi, space battles, sweeping storylines, and a blending of mystical and scientific ideas, but it certainly popularized them during the years of the original trilogy and influenced many people that would go on to have interests in sci-fi, fantasy and epic adventure today.

Hell, look me in the eye and tell me that the lightsaber didn't give us the [[power weapon]]. But then again, magic weapons.
==Sabacc and Pazaak==
A rather unusual entry here but it's well in line, Sabacc is an actual tabletop card game from the Star Wars universe which is basically a hybrid of Poker and Blackjack. A Sabacc Deck has 76 cards, most of which in four suits of 16 cards numbered one to 16, plus sixteen wildcards in two sets with values that were either negative or (in the case of the Idiot) Zero. The goal of the game is to have a set of three cards who's total as close as possible to, but not over, 23 or -23. If you got 23/-23 (Pure Sabacc) which could only be beaten by an Idiot's Array (One Idiot, a two and a three, thus 23). The stakes are raised every cycle until the cards go down or one player is left standing who gets the pot.

The notable thing about Sabacc that sets it apart from real world card games is that the Cards can change value every turn. A Pure Sabacc can easily become an instant lose 25 and an absolutely lousy hand can become an Idiot's Array. They can be stabilized to fix their value, but everyone knows when you do so. This feature has so far prevented Sabacc from being released in tabletop form as of yet. ''(Of course, there are ways to deal with this, such as simply re-dealing unfixed cards, but never let it be said that nerds will choose practicality over purity.)''

In universe, Han Solo won the Millenium Falcon off Lando in a game of Sabacc.

Pazaak is an older game from an in-universe perspective, similar to Blackjack but its player versus player rather than player versus dealer and also has some aspects of a collectible card game. Goal of the game is to raise cards from the main deck until their total value is 20 or they can also choose to stand if they get close but don't want to risk it. Best out of five wins.

CCG-aspect of Pazaak comes from the sidedeck: both players collect ten cards for their side deck and then randomly take four cards from their side deck to their hand in the beginning of the game. Hand cards are used to either lower or raise the total value: so if the player raises cards from the main deck to the total value of 25, they can prevent dropping out if they have a -5 card or higher in their hand.
Cards which only either raise or lower the value are the most common of the side cards.
More rarer are cards which can be used to both raise and lower the value.
Then there are flip cards, which change certain main deck cards on the table to negative ones. So if the player plays a 2&4 flip card, all 2:s and 4:s on the table become -2:s and -4:s. Flip cards exist in 2&4:s and 3&6:s.
Then there is the double card, which doubles the value of the last played card. So if the player raises a 5 from the main deck, playing the double card would turn it into a 10.
Finally, the rarest side deck card is the tiebreaker, which grants the player a win if the game would otherwise end in a tie.

==Tabletop games for Star Wars==

=== Role-playing Games ===

[[West End Games]] made a Star Wars [[role-playing game]] called [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] AKA '''Star Wars D6'''. Like many West End products, it's a good game with the great misfortune of being published by West End games.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] picked up the license later and made two distinct RPGs based on their [[d20 System]], called [[Star Wars D20]] (imaginatively). Could be fun, but generally broken as hell, much like [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|its parent game]]. It was then utterly revised that into what they called the '''Saga Edition''', which is relatively balanced and pretty good.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars Roleplaying Game|a whole line of Star Wars-themed RPGs]], each one focusing on a specific style of play. You want to play a bunch of scruffy space outlaws (Edge of the Empire), members of the nascent Rebellion (Age of Rebellion), or exiled Jedi Knights (Force and Dedtiny), then they got you covered. Unlike their [[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]] games, which are all ''juuuuust'' different enough from one another to completely buttfuck any attempts at blending, all three gamelines use identical mechanics and are fully cross-compatible. Uses symbol-counting [[dice pool]]s with ludicrously overpriced custom dice.
Like the other RPGs they decided with the retardedly similar name, and thus this one is sometimes called '''Star Wars FFG''' to avoid confusion.

FFG have kept milking the franchise and in summer 2017, decided to [[Necromancer | reanimate]] the [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] with a "30th Year Anniversary Edition" print of the original game. It '''''finally''''' shipped in July 2018 after spending a year in limbo.

=== Card Games ===

The big [[card game]] set in the Star Wars universe is the [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]. It's no longer produced by Decipher, but there is still a sufficiently large player community to organize annual tournaments, rule on cards, and so on. SWCCG was radically different from the norm of card games, being divided into light and dark side cards with different backings, with light and dark always playing against each other. For tournament play a player would need both a light and dark deck.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] made the [[Star Wars Trading Card Game]].

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars: The Card Game]].

Obviously, nobody is capable of creating a Star Wars card game with an interesting name.

Aside from the real, physical, games there was also ''Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game''. It was a real, functioning, card game within the MMO that used all virtual cards. Unfortunately no server emulators have implemented it yet.

=== Miniature Games ===
[[Wizards of the Coast]] did a tabletop battles game imaginatively called Star Wars: Miniatures, based on an extremely dumbed down version of the D&D ruleset. The figures were meant to tie in with the Saga edition RPG, it wasn't terrible on its own, just impossible to collect for competitive play since figures came in random booster packs so you never know what you were getting for what faction. Who could possibly stand for that?

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is producing the [[X-Wing]] miniatures game based on individual starfighter combat (because, let's be honest, that's what ''Star'' Wars is all about). They have also released [[Star Wars: Armada]] which is a larger scale "fleet" combat simulator, using capital ships and squadrons of starfighters.

'''Star Wars: Imperial Assault'''

The latest [[Fantasy Flight Games]] addition to its Star Wars related games is a mix between a miniature board game and a skirmish wargame. It has two play modes:

One for campaign play where 1-4 players control a team of Rebel heroes and another player has the role of the DM, who controls the Imperial forces. The campaign, as the name suggests, focuses on character personalization, xp gain and the like, which you can find in any light RPG-esque (board)game. The main goal is to get a few friends together and casually play through the missions. Think of it as a Star Wars version of the original [[Hero Quest]].

The other play mode is skirmish play, where two players each get to assemble a team of miniatures plus a command deck (cards that have specific effects when played) and play against each other in an open-play scenario. The play area is still very limited to a few game tiles (as in a campaign mission) but players are free to bring whatever they want (with a few limitations of course). The skirmish part of Imperial assault is as close as you can get to an actual Star Wars skirmish wargame, but it is a missed opportunity from Fantasy Flight to create a true skirmish wargame (ala [[Infinity (wargame)|Infinity]]), not based on tiles and so confined spaces. Who knows what they have plans for though...

'''Star Wars Legion'''

And Fantasy Flight have now given us a fully fledged wargame, complete with AT-ST in the first wave. (They're 32mm scale, which means [[Games Workshop|no reusing your Imperial Assault miniatures]].) Legion has an integrated turn system, and the usual FF custom dice and forest worth of dead trees in cards and tokens that will be familiar to X-Wing and Armada players. The miniatures are PVC, reasonably detailed, easy to assemble pieces. A standard battle is 800 points, which could be anywhere from half a dozen to 16 units on the field, with an average army fielding 8-12 units comprising 30-ish models.

=== Board Games ===

The most famous and arguably best one is [[Star Wars: Rebellion]], an asymmetric two-player game that plays through the Original Trilogy in a wargame/worker placement-esque game. The Empire player must expand their already huge military base over the galaxy to build more ships and huge superweapons while searching for the Rebel Base, while the Rebels do their best to bite them in their heel, obscuring their movements and annoying the Empire until they have enough support to overthrow the Empire. As a [[Fantasy Flight Games|FFG]] boardgame, it's filled with a ludicrous amount of bits and pieces (including sweet models of Star Destroyers, Death Stars and Calamari Cruisers), as well as the trademark filled-with-small-exceptions ruleset. It's pretty sweet and still considered one of the best board games of its kind.

=== Card Miniature Games ===

In the late 00's, WizKids produced a short lived construct-able miniatures Star Wars game based on their styrene card system for Pirates of the Spanish Main. Although the game sold well, when NECA bought WizKids from Topps the rights did not transfer and it went out of print.

==Video Games for Star Wars==

To put it bluntly, every game which could possibly have ''Star Wars'' slapped onto it, exists. Flight simulators. Racers. Rail shooters. Doom clones. MMOs. Age of Empires reskins. Hell, there's even a Kinect variety game. Here's a few standouts...

* '''Knights of the Old Republic''': A pair of single player RPGs depicting a Sith war several thousand years before ''A New Hope''. KotOR is widely regarded as the best Star Wars video game ever, and was the framework for BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' series. Of all the Legends stuff, KotOR appears to still be in good standing with Disney since they continue to borrow from it. The sequel by Obsidian was the original skubtastic take on the franchise TLJ wanted to be but failed miserably. Got an MMO simply called "Old Republic" (since you can play as things other than Jedi and Sith) that is the sequel, which had a very rough start but stabilized enough to still survive to this day somehow). Possibly still canon in the Disney continuity since a lot of things get borrowed or referenced from it. Also the only thing in the EU to still receive new content.

* '''Jedi Knight:''' A series that started of as an early FPS named Dark Forces (so early that it was the time when FPS games were still known as [[Doom]]-clones) but Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had the protagonist become a Jedi. The Dark Forces name was dropped in favor of Jedi Knight after this. The series combines surprisingly deep lightsaber combat with standard shooting, though the levels can get very mazy at times. Introduced Kyle Katarn, one of the most popular characters from EU. Unfortunately, there has not been a new game since 2003's ''Jedi Academy'' and likely will never be thanks to Disney.

* '''Republic Commando''': An FPS that has the player command a squad of commandos. Its a great shooter but unfortunately, it never received a sequel and to make things worse, ended on a cliffhanger. The second act of the game, set entirely on a drifting Acclamator-class assault ship is particularly memorable and highly atmospheric. If one can look past outdated graphics, its worth trying out for anyone who wants a good FPS experience.

* '''Empire at War''': Made by the original developers of [[Command and Conquer]], it is the most notable strategy game to have come out of Star Wars. Notable for featuring three different modes of play: ground battles, space battles and galactic conquest map. Though ground battles are a bit meh, the space battles are great and the galactic conquest is certainly more interesting than only playing random skirmish matches. Even though its over 10 years old, it has a very active modding community. Republic at War, which changes the games Galactic Civil War setting to Clone Wars and Thrawns Revenge, set much further into the Galactic Civil War than portrayed in the films, are particularly great. There is also a remake mod in the works, aiming to bring the game up to modern standards in terms of visuals, sound and UI and the results do look good. Unfortunately, no great 40k mod.

* '''Star Wars Galaxies''': An early MMO, launched after ''Everquest'' but before ''WoW''. Galaxies is noteworthy for making force powers a prestige achievement requiring enormous in-game effort to unlock. The first expansion pack added a subgame that's a pretty solid flight game in its own right and the game eventually added an original, fully playable, trading card game that sadly has not yet been implemented in any simulator. Then ''World of Warcraft'' hit, Sony panicked and made Jedi a starting class and replaced the skill system with massive level grind, and offered refunds to the raging army of neckbeards. Subscription numbers tanked and never recovered. It would effectively be replaced by ''The Old Republic'', an MMO using the acclaimed KotOR setting. Like most "dead" MMOs that people loved it still lives on through illegal private servers (don't worry, the guys providing it would get busted, not people playing on it).

* '''X-Wing (and TIE Fighter)''': A series of ''Wing Commander'' clones released in the 90's. While badly dated today, they were the best fighter sims of their time, and if you can get past the highly primitive graphics some people still consider them to be the best to this day. Interestingly, TIE Fighter is largely seen as the best of the series while the N64 era Rogue Squadron and Shadows Of The Empire games are seen as being far more visually modern but largely inferior sequels. Did we mention you had to use a flight stick controller basically made for these games to really do well at these?

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2005)''': Not to be confused with the one released by EA in 2017. Solid game from the new-defunct Pandemic studio (fuck you, EA) in 2005 told from the perspective of a clone trooper that survived all the way up to the battle of Hoth, with a very down to earth boots on the ground approach. Also, just being thrown into random matches as a soldier because fun. Despite some issues, it remains the high point of the Battlefront series as well as the entire PS2 era, and on PC still has fans via an active modding community to this day. There is of course also the original one but the second one pretty much completely overshadowed it.

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)''': The one by EA. You've probably heard everything important. An absolute mess at launch due to its lootbox-heavy progression system, so much so that it started discussion even on government level about lootboxes that continues to this day. A comment by EA that became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Yet despite all this, two years later, the game is arguably one of the best Star Wars experiences one can have and an Anakin-level redemption story. Like the previous Battlefront II, it completely overshadowed its predecessor.

* '''Jedi: Fallen Order''': It took them years but finally, EA managed to deliver a Star Wars game that is great on launch without cramming it with e-transactions. Its plot focuses on an unfortunate Jedi renegade between ''Revenge'' and ''A New Hope'' who's on the hunt for a hidden database that might document all the Force-sensitive individuals in the galaxy. A game inspired primarily by games such as Dark Souls and Uncharted, its a great action-adventure game in its own right and a must-play for any Star Wars fan.

* '''Monopoly Star Wars''': Its Star Wars Monopoly. With 90's FMV that plays for every square you land on. On floppy disks. Considered fucking amazing at the time, its too strange and tabletop to not mention. Also one of the last pre-Prequel things released.

* '''Super Star Wars''': A heavily modified retelling of the original trilogy (what, you don't remember how Luke chased down the Sandcrawler and murdered all the Jawas as well as their giant rat god in order to rescue R2-D2?) that was one of the ways to say "hard as fuck" by namedropping a game prior to Dark Souls existing. Amusing for the insanity of the added content in order to make a platformer sidescrolling beat'em'up as well as how neckbeardy you have to be to punish yourself trying to beat it without cheating.

* '''Star Wars: Yoda Stories''': A game geared for kids, released the same year as Monopoly above. Players play as Luke sometime after Empire Strikes Back, although an odd alternate version where Han sometimes is free from carbonite and Boba Fett and sometimes is not. They are assigned a quest by Yoda which requires them to traverse one or more procedurally generated planets doing whatever odd crap Yoda felt was necessary, including sometimes fighting Vader. Recieved middling scores as a PC release, with some individuals HATING the game and using it as a benchmark for how much they hate something when comparing the two, although to be fair that is because distributors tried to sell it like a full game when in reality its supposed to just be freebie software that came with other purchases and was meant to go with Solitaire and space pinball as default games on a computer to waste time with. It has lapsed into obscurity thanks to even those reviewers largely being forgotten on the modern internet. Noteworthy for being played on a grid with simultaneous turn-based movement with all enemies and NPCs on a screen, feeling very much like a tabletop game at times. A simple puzzle game, where getting blocked in a corner without enough space to pass the time by an idiot NPC is more dangerous than any foe.

*'''Shadows of the Empire''': Made on the Nintendo 64 and Windows PC, you play as Dash Rendar, a scoundrel in a ship like Han Solo working for the Rebellion. Takes place during Episode V as a side story. Despite being much beloved by fans for years and years, it's sadly not aged well thanks to the rather peculiar control scheme of the N64 and the graphics not having aged like cheap cheese in the sun. Main enemy of the game is a xeno named Xisor who is just a real uppity crime boss (and apparently a prince). This game has an absolute great opening first part where you're flying in a Snowspeeder on Hoth killing Imperials left and right while trying to use the cables to crash the AT-ATs like in the movie. After that the game begins to kinda just carry on with awkward controls.

==Assorted list of Awesome From Star Wars==
* Fucking ''[[Lightsaber|Lightsabers!]]''
* The fucking [[Approved music|OST]]
* What is likely the greatest duel in cinematic history, that takes place on a [[Death World|lava planet.]]
* Deathly Stormtroopers, heroic Clonetroopers or sinister First Order troopers; whatever they're called, stormtroopers are awesome!
* Darth Vader whenever he gets a speaking line or to murder rebel scum - that is to say, all the time.
* Darth Maul in both The Phantom Menace and TCW.
* Lightsaber Rifles
* The entirety of the Umbara campaign, where <s>Imperial Guardsmen</s> Clone Troopers die in the dozens attempting to win some godforsaken planet, earning them balls of titanium that make the guard look ba- {{BLAM| '''*BLAM*''' Heresy!}}
* 97% of the Creatures.
* 98% of the Starfighter designs.
* Costumes that mix about every possible inspiration, Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese, Ancient Greece and Rome, Elizabethan, Moebius or Pulp Sci-Fi from the 60's, giving the whole series a distinctive style and gives Padme Amidala an excuse to show off with all her dresses.
* Boba and Jango Fett and the rest of the Mandalorians.
* KOTOR (both games) plot making you think this shit is actually logical and has so much philosophical background. One of the creepiest depictions of the Universe. Everything is brutal, with big vibrating knives, blood, those machines for Sith snuff movies, more blood, bastards, badass bastards and so on. Everything while somebody is talking with you about existence.
* Our saviour Lord Revan. He's like if [[Horus|fucking Horus]] just became [[Big Bad Evil Guy|fucking bad]] (but not that [[Erebus|bad]]) to fucking destroy the [[Chaos Gods|Dark Gods]] so he can solve his daddy issues.
**but he's more virile, deadly, powerful, charismatic and cool.
* Lightsabers.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi.
* The High Ground.
* TIE fighters. They have the most distinctive scream of any fighter in cinematic history that just yells "I'm evil!". Tell me I'm wrong. I'll wait.
** The fact that they managed to do that using what is essentially a shitty visual pun.
* Most of Episode 3.
* The entirety of Anakin's story, especially when you add the Clone Wars and prequels. While you're at it, watch CinemaWins' perspective on it the series.
* Admiral Ackbar the Memeable!
* Palpatine getting into some Tzeentchian-level scheming and backstabbing in order to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic.
* Grand Admiral Thrawn: So awesome that he rose to a high rank in the anthropocentric Empire despite being an alien and was one of the first (and rare few) things to be imported straight from Legends to Disney.
* Imperial Pilots get a mention, seeing as they fly literal garbage fighters against superior rebel fighters. By garbage, we mean that even the Imperium have better fighter designs than these guys. At least Imperial fighters conserve the life of the fucking pilot.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi again.
* Princess, later Senator Leia Organa; the original badass-yet-hot boss lady in space. Ends up leading two separate, successful underground freedom movements against impossible odds. Did we mention she's a Jedi in both canons?
* Han Solo, who is so badass that hot Leia falls in love. He has the smuggler's best friend, a Wookie, who is also the worst opponent you can face in a [[Chess|Dejarik match]].
* Just... Star Destroyers. When you see a huge, imposing warship from an evil Empire, this is the granddaddy they all look up to.
* Oh, did we mention the lightsabers ?

== See Also: ==
* ''[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/ Darths & Droids]'': A webcomic, made using photo-stills of the ''Star Wars'' movies to tell a story about gamers blundering through each of the six movies in sequence... though not quite exactly how you might expect. Think ''DM of the Rings'' in overall visual style, though unlike ''DM of the Rings'', ''Darths & Droids'' features several heavy twists on the actual events of the films, subplots about the players and their lives outside the game alongside the campaign, and a better overall quality of gamer.
* "[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html/ Endor Holocaust]": An excellent example of the [[skub]] Star Wars can create. Rebuttal: "[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/fanart/endortruth20040810.pdf Endor Rebuttal]"
*[[Timothy Zahn]]
*[[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]]
*[[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*[[Star Wars:Resistance]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]

Star Wars

2020-03-13T22:40:02Z

2406:3400:20F:FFC0:61C4:A15A:8FB8:3103: /* The original EU/Star Wars "Legends" */

{{Star Wars}}
[[File:Star-Wars-Logo (1).jpg|center|500px|]]

{{Topquote|A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....|Star Wars opening text}}
'''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D0ZQPqeJkk/ Star Wars]''' is one of, if not ''the'', most influential media franchises of modern times, let alone its effect on science-fiction and fantasy. Indeed, among [[/tg/|nerddom]], it is challenged by only a few others, like [[Star Trek]] and [[The Lord of the Rings]].

The incredibly ardent fandom is spread worldwide and has a strong presence in popular culture. Many of the characters, like Darth Vader and Yoda, are iconic even to the general public. John Williams' score for the original trilogy is probably the best-known film score of all time. The universe has spawned numerous video games, hundreds of novels, multiple TV shows, one of the largest merchandising franchises ever, and, relevant to /tg/, a whole bunch of board, card, and roleplaying games.

It is also the current leading world source of [[Skub]].

==The Basic Concept==
Star Wars was originally a series of epic science-fantasy "space operas" that roughly followed the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. They're set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," [Note: this makes the entire series a fairy tale] where a mysterious life force called (reasonably enough) the Force permeates everything. This, in turn, can be wielded by certain people, giving them pseudo-magical abilities; thank the Emperor (no, the other one) there were no Commissars in that universe. Those who use it for good become mystical, selfless warrior monks called Jedi, whereas those who use it for evil are ruthless, self-serving bastards called Sith. However, the Force must always be in balance, so any time the Sith arise to cause imbalance, the Jedi have to pull together and take them out to restore the natural order.

The so-called Original Trilogy (made up of films IV through VI, released from 1977 to 1983) followed a young man named Luke Skywalker who becomes a Jedi and re-balances the Force. Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance is fighting to end the oppressive Galactic Empire, which is secretly led by the Sith. Luke and his Rebel companions eventually defeat the evil Emperor Palpatine, but along the way they discover that his lieutenant, Darth Vader, is actually Luke's father. A financial, critical, popular and cultural H-bomb, these movies are basically the filter through which Generation X perceives the world... for better or worse.

The so-called Prequel Trilogy (made up of films I through III, released from 1999 to 2005) explained how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and how the Galactic Empire was established. This involves a lot of convoluted politicking in the Republic, which is then torn apart in the Clone Wars, where the Republic (with an army of clones led by the Jedi) fights against the Confederacy (with an army of robots led by [[Necrons|General Grievous]] and secretly controlled by the Sith). It was not as well received as the first trilogy, for reasons we'll talk about below.

There's also a so-called Sequel Trilogy (made up of film VII and presumably films VIII and IX), which started in 2015 and picked up the story some three decades after the Emperor's defeat with a new generation of heroes taking on the remains of the evil Empire, which is a group of extremist former Imperials calling themselves the First Order. However, Episode VII aka ''The Force Awakens'', was directed by J.J. Abrams, who's mostly known for the [[skub|skubtastic]] [[Star Trek]] reboot, while Episode VIII was written and directed by Ryan Johnson who was a young director known for plot twists and genre experimentation on a handful of movies and television episodes that openly said he wanted to "subvert expectations" and make half of viewers dislike his work, then got pissed when half of them disliked his work. The result managed to fracture the Star Wars fanbase over issues of dull rehashing for VII and a whole laundry list of reasons for VIII (ranging from small ones such as it being too different, to major issues like half the movie being filler), as well as those who still enjoyed them and very little common ground between the three groups.

Finally, there are the so-called Anthology movies, standalone one-shots involving characters and plotlines that aren't a part of the main "Saga" films, except they kind of are. The first, Rogue One (2016), is an immediate prequel to Episode IV that follows those Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans. The second film follows a young Han Solo and pals Chewie and Lando. A third rumored one follows Boba Fett.

There are also three separate TV series. The first one, ''Clone Wars'', was based on traditional animation, whereas the later one, '''''The''' Clone Wars'', was a weird 3D animation. They're both pretty good. There was also a terrible theatrical release that was basically just an advertisement for ''The Clone Wars'', but, since it's even worse than the Prequel Trilogy (hint: babysitting Jabba the Hutt's kid), nobody talks about it much. The third series is Disney's ''"Rebels"'' which is set between Episodes III-IV and it takes itself far less seriously than Clone Wars did, and is more of a homage to the original trilogy since not every character in the series is the owner of a lightsaber nor are they constantly talking about grown-up politics, senators and trade embargoes... pretty much the things that clogged up the plot of the prequel trilogy.

And then there's the whole Expanded Universe, which covers pretty much everything not covered by the films, like the Old Republic (set thousands of years before the prequel trilogy, when there were a hell of a lot more Sith and Jedi around) and the New Republic (set immediately after the original trilogy, explaining what became of all the characters. It could also reach 40k levels of grimdark with races like the [[Dark Eldar|Yuuzhan]] [[Tyranids|Vong]] characters like [[Vampire|Darth Nihilus]] and beings like [[Old Ones|Abeloth]].

The EU is no longer considered in the main canon of the films and TV series, due to the new sequel trilogy which does not follow EU, the reason for this being, according to Disney, that following EU would restrict their creative freedom. The reaction to this was, well, [[skub|mixed, for lack of a better word.]] They've since noted that they'll slot ''some'' of it in on a case-by-case basis, but the canon is in a highly fluid state at the moment. EU is now officially called Star Wars Legends, though most fans still refer to it as EU.

==Why is it so popular?==

Star Wars is as accessible as science fiction gets. It doesn't require extensive knowledge of a fictional world (a la ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' or ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'') or cultural background (as ''[[Star Trek]]'' sometimes does) to make sense. Those elements are present for those who want them, but they largely stay in the (very rich and vibrant) background. It has well-shot action and good ''enough'' dialogue to make it interesting for both kids and adults (as well as allowing parents who grew up with it to watch it with their children, thereby hooking the next generation of viewers). It has simple, good-vs.-evil themes that resonate with almost anyone, anywhere, at any time. The science fiction elements are generally handled well if you don't obsess over making science fiction realistic and hard. It's a prime gateway drug for sci-fi which still holds up to the experienced eye, [[Isaac Asimov]] saw and rather enjoyed the films. All in Fourteen hours of cinema, plus optional sides for those who want it.

There's a ton of merchandise that is, of course, really cool. Also, given it's crossed over into the mainstream, many people feel comfortable being part of the community without feeling judged as "nerds" (as they might with ''Lord of the Rings'', ''D&D'', ''Star Trek'', ''Warhammer'', etc.).

Again, they roughly follow the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. If you think about it, 6 of the 9 films can be summarized as: hero begins his journey under the tutelage of a wise (more or less) man, they encounter a threat which has captured/enslaved a princess/girl, who was in one way or another connected to an important secret (usually a superweapon but could be the identity of a political figure or the location of someone); the heroes save the princess/girl but someone dies tragically in a battle against the villain while someone else is blowing up a space station or a spaceship afterwards they are happy, they celebrate and mourn the loss of the poor bloke who died.

Additionally, the first film can be summarized as a samurai and a gunslinger team up to save a princess from Nazis in space. That is multiple cinematic genres at once, following the style of the epic myth.

==Setting==
Due to article bloat, [[Star Wars Setting]] is now its own page.

==The rise of the original trilogy==

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away....etc etc you all know the lines.

A man called George Lucas had the idea to create a series of epic sci-fi space operas that would become so successful that Disney would take notice and give it the franchise fluttering eye lashes, trying to seduce it.

They would be called... ''Flash Gordon''.

Unfortunately for Georgie boy, and fortunately for modern nerddom, Dino de Laurentiis already owned ''Flash Gordon'', and were busy making their own, hilariously eighties version, so he said, screw it, I'll make my own!

He decided to start with the fourth movie in the series he envisioned, for at the time he didn't have the special effects to create the first three to the standard he wanted, and/or he just kinda made up the first movie as he went along (drawing heavily on Akira Kurosawa's seminal samurai action film, ''Hidden Fortress'' in the process as well as the book [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces''], a complex 1949 Joseph Campbell analysis of the various mythologies of human history all boiled down into the basic archtypes and elements required in heroic myth). So Episode Four ''A New Hope'' was created (simply titled ''Star Wars'' at the time) and it is not an exaggeration to say it changed the face of sci-fi and general moviemaking forever, bringing a new era of special effects and imagination to cinema and changing the lives of many who would go onto to become dedicated fan boys.

Originally, the studio had forced Lucas to take ever-increasing paycuts for what they were sure was going to be a flop, and only let him keep merchandising rights. However, whatever his flaws, George Lucas was a man of vision. Having helped pioneer the summer blockbuster, he went on to do the same to ginormous piles of movie-tie-in memorabilia. His production company, Lucasfilm ended up rolling in dosh, and with Episode Five ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and Episode Six ''The Return of the Jedi'', the legend of Star Wars and its place in cultural history was assured.

tl;dr: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4w7ChpuaM Pretty much this.]

==The coming of the prequel trilogy==
With the year 2000 coming, George Lucas felt that special effects technology had reached the level he wanted and began to create the first three movies in the star wars story he had envisioned. (As a side-note, he also made some touch-ups to the three original films, re-mastering them with special effects and a couple of extra scenes that weren't doable with the eighties' animatronics. But those were mostly accepted/shrugged away since they didn't deeply modify anything.)

The hype for the movies was immense.

And then the first movie, Episode One ''The Phantom Menace'' came out.....and there was nerd rage beyond expectation.

Part of the problem was that the immense expectations of the fandom had grown until anything less-than-perfect simply would not do, so perhaps that is somewhat to blame for the reaction to the prequel trilogy. In a vacuum one has to admit that they aren't completely ''[[Twilight|terrible films]]'' .

Episode Two ''Attack of the Clones'' and Episode Three ''Revenge of the Sith'' followed after a few years each and didn't garner nearly as much hatred, though fans complained they didn't match the greatness of the original trilogy, more concerned with flashy action and effects than competent story-telling; but hooo-boy did it deliver in flashy action, with laser armed [[MI-24 Hind|MI-24's]] full of <s>storm</s>troopers extracting jedi from a coliseum full of shooty killbots.

''Revenge of the Sith'' did, however, receive higher ratings than ''Return of the Jedi'', and is generally seen as the best and most-complete of the three prequel films as a story. Unusually the novelization alters some details and is considered a legitimately good book on its own merits.

What was generally more well received (despite a rocky start with a two hour pilot being pressed into service as a movie and an art style that took some time to gel) during this time for Star Wars was the Clone Wars animated series (both the traditionally-animated ''Clone Wars'' and the later seasons of the CGI show '''''The''' Clone Wars'', the latter which most everyone agrees is what the prequels should have been), following the war between the Republic and the Confederacy that sprung up during the time between the second and third of the prequels.

It'd be ''really'' hard to find a group of movies more skubtastic than the prequel trilogy, and saying a good or bad thing about it in front of the wrong crowd's sure to provoke huge amounts of nerdrage. In defense of the prequel trilogy's sins, they did at least do their own thing. Because of how much money the original trilogy made, practically every form of media in the 80s and 90s aped it to some form or another, and instead of falling back on the same old shit the prequels branched out and tried to get out of the franchise's comfort zone a bit. While a lot of it sucked, it blazed a trail for better writers to follow and helped liven up the universe by showing us the galaxy beyond fuckhueg spaceships and faux-Western shitholes like Tatooine. And all but the most [[Neckbeard|diehard OT purists]] can get behind shit like Naboo architecture, the Clone Army and Mace "The Ace" Windu. From a story perspective the worst sin of the prequels was demystifying the force, and subsequent works have largely swept that detail under the carpet.

==Disney and the sequel trilogy==

Finally, all the efforts by Disney to woo George Lucas paid off and in 2012 Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise for 4 billion dollars and immediately announced they would produce a new trilogy of films set after the original trilogy.

Expectations were almost as high as the private fears of the fans. Bringing on the creative talent behind the [[skub|skubtastic]] ''[[Star Trek]]'' reboot was equally... well, [[skub|take a wild guess]].

For sake of sanity, these section have been condensed. Read at your own peril.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 7: The Mouse Awakens===
''Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens'' debuted in December of 2015, and reception was what you would expect: the film was immediately a massive success from a monetary standpoint as everyone ([[China|almost]]) everywhere rushed to the theaters in response to the hype, with children engaging in as many repeat viewings as their parent's money could allow as fans did the same thing with their own. It has become a financial hit with the general public and a (critically) generally well-reviewed piece, with decent cinematography, special effects, technical stuff, etc. It also went on to become the third biggest financial success in film history (at the time), when not adjusted for inflation.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Fan response was a good deal more mixed. Many criticize the plot for rehashing Episode IV, without doing anything to establish its own identity and claim that it had a bland main character, [[Mary Sue|who had too many abilities]] whereas others find the replication of ''Star Wars'' feel an acceptable trade and praise it for being a decent action film, [[skub|and claim the lead doesn't outdo any of the previous main characters]].

Some would argue that by rehashing the original trilogy it basically nullified the accomplishments of the original crew; the Empire's still around, they've got yet another superweapon, Han & Leia split up, Luke failed to rebuild the Jedi, etc. Other fans praised it simply for being a new Star Wars that was better than the prequel trilogy (expectations were lowered due to those, to be honest). Some see poor storytelling when there was no proper showing of what went on in the galaxy 3 decades since Palpatine died, and not explaining what caused big character changes like why Han returned to his old ways or Luke ran from his friends was critical. Other say this is going to be explained in the next film and people should keep their curiosity. Some argue even with their superweapon, none of the villains feel threatening. Others argue the incompetence of the main villain is a fresh change and the point of the plot will be to see him change, to be more competent, or even learn to become good.

Overall, those against argued JJ Abrams' mystery box approach may do well for a TV series but does not mesh with films that take years to make. Defendants held the position that fans should wait to see whether the next film will do anything with the unexplained plot points.

Coincidentally, when Hamill and Fisher were originally approached by Disney to reprise their roles as Luke and Leia, they ''didn't want to do it'' right from the start. But, they didn't want to give an out-and-out "no" answer either, so they told Disney they'd return if Harrison Ford agreed to return as Han Solo as well. Knowing how much Ford ''hated'' Solo, Hamill and Fisher figured they were safe, until Disney irresistibly sweetened the deal for Ford by agreeing to kill off his character, thus forcing a reluctant Hamill and Fisher to make good on their deal... [[skub|only for the three characters to never appear on the screen at the same time.]] To be fair, Hamill has a history of saying he won’t do something only to immediately agree like he’s making a standard sitcom gag in real life, even if that usually just applies to still voicing the Joker in Batman media.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars Rebels===
Disney also released their own CGI series: ''Star Wars: Rebels'', which is actually pretty ok (considering that it airs on Disney XD, it should be no surprise that they've toned down the graphic depictions of gratuitous violence, much to the chagrin of [[Neckbeards|those who love overly gory deaths]]). It focuses less on the Jedi that have come to dominate the franchise and more on the "boots on the ground" experience of the average characters, and while the show started slow and small, the plot gained momentum as the series progressed, especially after the first season.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The Rebel movement starts to grow, several characters return from ''The Clone Wars'', and the enemies the main characters have to face steadily get darker and more dangerous as more of the Empire’s attention gets attracted. When Darth Vader gets involved (played by none other than [[Awesome|James Earl Jones himself]]) he immediately proceeds to [[Awesome|open a 24-pack of unstoppable whoop-ass on the rebel scum]]. The return of Maul resulted in three character deaths (possibly four), the crippling of one main character with another well on his way down the dark side, and to top it all off Maul himself was on the loose once again. Things did not turn out so well [[Grimdark|last time that happened]], so expect the body count to rise, especially with [[Creed|Grand Admiral Thrawn]] now also coming onto the scene. The show also continues the trend set by ''The Clone Wars'' in making the Force mystical again, though whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how you felt about the <s>bullshit</s> <s>scientific</s> [[Skub|skubtastic]] midichlorian explanation of the Prequels. The animation is on point with ''The Clone Wars'', which considering it's Disney should surprise less than nobody. Oh, and Steve Blum voices one of the main characters. However, it is also noted that Star Wars Rebels may indeed have [[Grimdark|dark ending]]. Which, to a degree, it did. An important character dies, and his padawan flees into the unknown regions, leaving us with two other characters to go look for him after the second Death Star blows up.

[[Skub|The way that Filoni (the creator of Rebels and The Clone Wars) has handled the Mandalorians, a fan-favorite warrior-culture based upon the Scots and Vikings, has either been met with praise from those who despised Traviss and her overpowering of said culture, or utter RAGE that he turned many of them into either pacifist morons or bloodthirsty barbarians- usually that particular criticism comes from the Traviss fanboys]]. Do take note, however, that the old ways for the Mandalorians are making their way back into canon, such as the language, the emphasis on martial honor, and the decentralized nature of their government.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Star Wars: Rogue One===
December of 2016 brought us the first standalone Star Wars movie, "Rogue One", showing the theft of the original Death Star plans.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

While "Rogue One" can be justly criticized for lacking in character development, that was basically mandated by being set just before another movie whose actors were now 40 years too old to reprise their previous roles. The cast of the movie includes almost no one who appears in Episode IV, and the few familiar faces who do appear show up as cameos. (Fair warning: spoilers)

Accordingly, every main character dies by the end. It still manages to pack quite a lot of [[awesome]] into the movie, with Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk and Darth Vader all used to great effect. Rogue One also answers several questions, plugs several plot holes, and just generally makes A New Hope make a lot more sense in retrospect. (No wonder Vader wasn't impressed when Leia claimed to be on a "diplomatic mission.") It also has the distinctions of being the only Star Wars movie to focus on regular soldiers instead of Jedi, and being more like the original Star Wars than any of the sequels, including the other two of the main trilogy. (The original, back before it was "A New Hope", was a genre mashup of samurai + gunslinger rescue princess from space Nazis, then team up for a World War II dogfight. This one is wuxia cast + heist crew do a heist in a WWII trench warfare war zone. There's surprisingly little 'War' in Star Wars.) Much, much [[Skub]] still exists of course, since no Star Wars movie will ever please all the neckbeards but out of the five post-Disney Star Wars movies released so far, this one is definitely the least divisive and arguably the best of the bunch.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">

===Episode 8: The Last Royalty Check (aka zomg Luke dies!)===
On December 14 2017, ''Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi'' was released world wide. The critical reception was [[Bullshit|extremely positive]], with many critics considering it the best movie in the series since The Empire Strikes Back. The fan reception has been a great deal more negative and [[Skub|mixed]], and a number of fans are convinced that Disney leaned on media outlets to shill the new movie or else. If you have watched the Empire Strikes Back, you ''WILL'' be [[Rage|disappointed at best]], if you want to see a Star Wars film that would finally expand the characters of Kylo Ren and Rey, you ''WILL'' be satisfied and disappointed at the same time, if you want to watch the film because it is the last film starring the great and wonderful Carrie Fisher, you ''WILL'' feel hollow and sad inside, and if you came to see a pair of lightsaber-wielding punks involved in one of the [[Skub|greatest or worst lightsaber battles of the franchise, you ''WILL'' be pleased or horribly disappointed]]. The Last Jedi is seen as one of the most divisive films in the franchise by the fandom, [[FAIL|which is one hell of an achievement]] considering other films.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

The complaints about The Last Jedi are many: the treatment of Luke (which even his actor, Mark Hamill, hated, to the point that he has no interest in playing Luke again), Leia's Superman asspull, Finn's plot arc that serves practically zero purpose and has him undergo the same character arc as the last movie, the forced humor, the complete disregard for established [[fluff]], disregard for even the most basic laws of physics, the fact that the central conflict is essentially the same as the one in the originals right down to the last stand ripped straight out of ''Empire'', the PC bullshit (a hipster admiral who the plot always treats as being in the right despite killing 90% of the Resistance, the Gilded Age planet arc that [[Namek|sucks up a third of the movie to no benefit,]] Rose expressing her desire to get BLACKED with a horrendous and forced #LoveTrumpsHate one-liner in the final act) added solely to virtue-signal and the whole thing being basically a 2,5h screed against the franchise it belongs to and the culture which spawned it.

Fans have also criticized the movie for dropping or discarding major plot points from TFA and repeatedly invoking Shamalamadingdong-tier plot twists for cheap gotchas that are somehow less interesting than the recycled cliches they play off of. Director Rian Johnson has responded by shitting on said critics and trying to defend the film on social media like something out of an ED or RW article. (Important note: George Lucas never tried to defend the prequels, despite the huge backlash at the time, and he agreed with fans that [[C.S Goto|The Star Wars Holiday Special]] was an abomination.) It later came out that Johnson had not been given any kind of roadmap beyond Lucas' old and unfinished concept scripts and was not allowed to see what Abrams had done until TLJ was too far into production to write in most of the previous movie's plot points, which makes the fail Disney's fault just as much as it is Johnson's. Except we also know that he had at least a modicum of influence over the ending of TFA, so they must have talked on at least some degree. As with TFA Lucasfilm has tried to paper over the holes with tie-in material, and just like TFA the fans recognize the damage control.

The Last Jedi has without a doubt torn the fanbase apart in ways even the prequels didn't come close to, with many fans declaring that they have dropped the sequel trilogy. Even Star Wars' famous merchandising has taken a mauling, as [[/toy/]] giggles at Rose Tico and General Hux figures warming shelves while new product shipments go straight from the transport case to the clearance bin.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg_FoEy8T_A I'm Solo, Han Solo, Han Solo]===
On May 25th 2018, the 41st anniversary of the franchise, ''Solo: A Star Wars Story'' was released. The general consensus seems to be that it is the most average film in the series. At the very least, most people agree that it is at least better than The Last Jedi (if barely) and the backlash from that movie can be felt even in Solo: many fans have chosen to boycott the movie. Even before release, many fans had derided the whole affair as unnecessary: no one was really asking for a Han Solo origin movie, particularly one without Harrison Ford. Han Solo's entire life history had already been explored thoroughly in EU novels and comics, so the movie could only be a retread or a retcon, both things most fanbases tend to disapprove of.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Whether it is because of this boycott or not, [[Not as planned|something no one expected happened:]] ''Solo'' was a box office bomb. Its opening weekend performed way below expectations and as of this writing, it has only made half of the money it needs for it to break even. Disney still continued to labor under the delusion that China would save their bottom line regardless of the fact that Star Wars has never been popular in China.

So what is it like? Well, rather than being a space opera like the other films, this is a space Western. Rather than being about large-scale battles and saving the galaxy from tyranny, it's about heists and the galactic underworld. (Except for the Mimban sequence, which you'd swear was lifted from a live-action Imperial Guard movie.) It's essentially Disney's reboot/retcon of the old EU Han Solo novels, taking things that were mentioned offhand in the original trilogy (like how Han did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs) and making that the subject of an entire movie. The film was perhaps cursed from the beginning due to its [[Fail|troubled production.]] How troubled? The lead needed an acting coach to get through his shoots (Han may have walked away with the Falcon, but Danny Glover's Lando stole the spotlight every time) and 70% of the movie had to be reshot by a different director due to [[Butthurt|creative differences]] between Lucasfilm and the original directors.

The fail only compounded when it premiered and fans got to see what those "creative differences" may have wrought: the writing staff started spewing bullshit to the press about Lando being "pansexual" with no precedent in any Star Wars production including ''Solo'', the film's tone is a schizophrenic nightmare to the last-minute reshoots and Han's sidekick for most of the movie is [[What|a self-built female droid social justice warrior]] named [[/v/|L3-37]]. Audiences ''cheered and applauded'' when that <s>man</s>human-hating self-insert character finally fucking died. Perhaps the most damning sin is that these are the movie's only notable qualities: take them away and you're left with a movie that would make you think "Huh, that was okay," and then never think about it again for the rest of your life, were it not for the crippling disappointment of seeing one of the most beloved franchises in the world fall so far. Between the boycotts, the mediocrity of the movie itself, and [https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Gawker certain news outlets] claiming that the driving force behind said boycotts was [[/pol/]], ''Solo'' cratered so badly that [[Exterminatus|all non-''Episode 9'' Star Wars movies were for a short time shelved indefinitely, and the only side-movie still being worked on is the obligatory Boba Fett origin movie, which is more likely to sell tickets based on the name alone.]] Incidentally, one of the writers picked by Lucasfilm to handle ''Solo'''s tie-in content, Cavan Scott, has been hired by [[Games Workshop]] for the [[Warhammer Adventures]] series.
</div>
</div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:800px">
===Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker (aka Plan Palpa-Nine from Outer Space)===
Your opinion of this movie is very easy to predict based on what you thought of the others; if you found The Last Jedi to be "refreshing", you'll absolutely HATE this one. If you hate all Disney content aside from ''maybe'' The Mandalorian, you'll hate this one as much as the others. If you absolutely detested The Last Jedi but have mixed opinions of the rest, you'll probably consider this to be the best of the new movies to varying degrees of actual enthusiasm. The movie largely undoes or ignores swathes of the previous one.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

After finishing shooting, the film was shown to test audiences (which JJ Abrams lied never happened). The film was extremely poorly received, one of many reasons being because it had [[Mary Sue|Rey curb-stomping Palpatine by herself in the final battle]] (test audiences reportedly either laughing at the film or had to be stopped from walking out of the test screenings). The poor showing made (then) Disney CEO Bob Iger - who was overseeing the screening - furious, and he immediately ordered the film to be reshot. The resulting reshoots were so extensive, [http://archive.ph/RLj94 they spanned months and the film didn't have a final edit till December 2019, the month of release], causing trailers to be so desperate for footage that wouldn't be cut they had to fill half the length with footage from prior films and stuff used in prior trailers. Further complicating matters was that the ''very stupid'' plot was leaked months before release. Despite extensive denials from Disney and media outlets, the leaks were proven correct by getting then unrevealed names and plot objects right. Camera leaks the week before release showed very little of the fantastically stupid content leaked months beforehand was changed, only minor details.

Before reading on, be aware that Rey and Kylo are no longer movie-type Force users, they have been changed to video game characters. Like KOTOR and Jedi Academy type where you just get powers by killing enough dudes. None of the powers are new to the franchise, but have been rarely seen and in some cases never before have in movies. You should also know that unlike the first Visual Dictionary that mostly just gave little prop trivia and plot hooks for other works, and the second which was mostly irrelevant until it gets referenced in a decade or two, the final Visual Dictionary is damn near required reading (this shit will get a "VD" to indicate it) since a lot of explanations were cut in the reshoots and recuts. Like for example the connection between Rey and Kylo is a "Force Dyad", basically one soul in the Force that inhabits two bodies (setting up a bit of a snarl what happens when one dies and not the other, and implying the personality is mostly in the brain which is why they can have unique experiences, but whatever) and warps space/time. This is why Rey was inexplicably powerful and knew how to do shit instinctively, because Kylo's training passed onto her, and likewise her nonstop playing with X-Wing training sims as a child made him a badass pilot. Dyads used to be far more common in the KOTOR era, and were apparently the inspiration for the Sith Rule Of Two. This is never mentioned in the final cut of the film, but leaks show it was in one of the earlier ones.

The movie pressed on with breakneck speed that doesn't have time for musical interludes or wipe transitions, the opening crawl informing you that Palpatine has somehow returned and sent a message to the galaxy with the Resistance trying to rebuild and gather information, Rey being trained by Leia on the planet Ajan Kloss (AKA not!Yavin #2, VD) after repairing Anakin's lightsaber (VD) who had received partial training from Luke before stopping for reasons explained later in the movie and supplementing the rest with her pouring over the Jedi texts, and Kylo Ren trying to find Palpatine because his existence is a threat to his rule. The movie takes a lot of inspiration from KOTOR era lore with Ren finding a Sith McGuffin Holocron-type navigation device on Mustafar (VD) showing him the secret planet of the Sith (not Korriban/Pesegam/Moraband, this one is a planet in a red nebula that is under constant lightning storms called Exegol). There he finds a MASSIVE Sith cult that has kept itself secret and managed to not only build a fucking massive fleet of Star Destroyers equipped with planetkiller guns like something straight out of the old canon, but divisions of Stormtroopers, technicians, and officers to fill them along with the typical cultists in robes who administer to keeping Palpatine alive and seeing to his Sith alchemy shit...which includes tanks containing multiple clones of Snoke, revealing the guy was literally born looking like that with a manufactured backstory all so Palpatine could use him as a puppet to create the First Order (which is almost a meta commentary about the backstory controversy).

Kylo is offered the chance to be the new Emperor by Palpatine, who is a corpse kept barely alive through methods some would consider... Unnatural, while strapped to a machine with [[Lord Kroak|his spirit sticking nearby]] (the filmmakers zig-zagged on the nature of this; first it was the original Palpatine who had somehow duped everyone in ''Return of the Jedi'' with a clone stand in, then the reshoots changed it to the original's zombie-like rotting corpse animated by his lingering spirit and Lucasfilm later retconned him to be a zombie-like clone of Palpatine after the film's release). The only requirement for Palps to pass him Emperorship is killing Rey, although Ren is immediately suspicious of the other strings attached (including choking a guy in a hissyfit when that concern is voiced) and decides instead to recruit Rey again, this time as a co-Emperor.

Finn and Poe obtain information about a spy within the First Order (yeah, you know its fucking Hux even before they say there is a spy at all) while Rey gets visions during her training with Leia. The spy confirms that Palpatine is legit and the info about the fuckmassive deathfleet is legit, and Rey finds the Jedi texts contain notes from Luke about his search for that planet. They go to his last clue, a desert planet that isn't Tatooine and is the middle of a festival where they find Lando has been holed up enjoying himself since him and Luke traveled there. They are immediately spotted by the First Order and escape from them to find the ship of one of Palpatine's servants who had last been seen there. They fall into sinkholes around the ship created by giant tunneling worms, and find the skeleton of Sheev's boy as well as a Sith dagger. 3PO is programmed with the Sith language, but his programming from the Old Republic era forbids him from giving the translation to civilians. Rey manages to get the sand worms to leave them alone by using Force powers to heal one's wound, and they attempt to get the Sheev's servant's ship up and running before they are attacked by the First Order. Chewie is taken prisoner and Rey wrecks Kylo's TIE Fighter before the two engage in a Force tug of war to pull the transport Chewie is on, which ends in Rey accidentally Force Lightning it and causing it to explode when she becomes frustrated with the stalemate. Chewie is revealed to have been on another transport and is taken to Ren's flagship Star Destroyer while the heroes, instead of do something sensible like seek a Rebel leader who can give security clearance for 3PO's protocol (Leia's the obvious choice), they head to a planet under VERY Nazi-like occupation to find a droid technician who can hack 3PO's memory. They encounter a woman from Poe's past, revealing he was a former spice smuggler like Han until abandoning his crew (causing them to fall into debt and become bitter at him) to join the Resistance. She threatens to turn the group in to pay off their debt [[Mary Sue| but Rey kicks her ass, earning her respect and she takes them to the technician without further incident.]] The technician unlocks 3PO's memory at the cost of wiping him. The translation reveals the dagger is the key to finding the Sith navigation McGuffin they are looking for. During this BB-8 reactivates Sheev's servant's old droid, who doesn't do much.

The heroes proceed to board Ren's flagship with the help of a First Order officer's badge, and shoot their way through as they free Chewie. Rey and Ren have another linked vision where her parents are revealed to have attempted to hide her from her grandfather Palpatine, who wanted to merge the souls of himself and '''ALL''' other preceding Sith (presumably not Revan, since his redemption is canon) while he discovers they are on his ship and orders it put on lockdown. Rey is confronted in the hangar by Ren, who offers her to join him again. She refuses and the Falcon appears, the engines blowing away the Stormtroopers while Rey jumps aboard. The crew head to Endor after finding out from Sheev's servant's old droid that it was where he was going to go next (this is the only thing the droid does other than serve as a "pet the dog moment" for the cast a few times) where the Death Star wreckage of the disk and throne room landed, encountering a division of former child-soldier Stormtroopers like Finn who went AWOL. The dagger has a slide-out metal prong from the handle which perfectly lines up with the corridor leading to Sheev's throne room. The team work on repairing the Falcon while Rey presses on ahead, alone, to the Death Star wreckage. Once in the throne room a hidden door opens, revealing a sanctum full of crystal mirrors that are the same as the ones she saw in her vision in Force Awakens (the scene where she snaps her fingers and all the mirrored ones do as well). There she finds the Sith McGuffin and gets a "The Cave" vision of herself as a Sith with a red double-bladed lightsaber which she fights. Kylo is waiting for her in the throne room, and crushes the Sith McGuffin in his hand before informing her they are linked in the Force as one soul inhabiting two bodies and offering her again to be the Vader to her Palpatine which she again refuses. The two fight while Finn and one of the Stormtroopers try to rescue her. They fight their way onto the remnants of the Death Star hangar, reminiscent of Anakin and Obi-wan in Revenge Of The Sith with water instead of lava, before Ren freezes as he senses his mother start to die. This pause gives Rey time to grab his lightsaber and stab him before she freezes sensing Leia actually pass away. Rey uses the Force to heal him, then steals his TIE Fighter while Poe and Finn return to the Resistance base. Rey initially attempts to hide on Luke's monastery to let Palpatine's bloodline die with her, but after lighting Kylo's TIE on fire (so she's destroyed 2 of his personal TIE at this point) Luke appears as a Force ghost to tell her <strike>Rian Johnson</strike> he was wrong, and was motivated by fear when he tried to hide. He reveals that all the Jedi who came before are rooting for her, and tells her where Leia's lightsaber is hidden. He reveals she stopped her training because in a vision she saw that her son would be destroyed by the Dark Side, and a Light Side counterpart would take up her blade instead. Meanwhile, Kylo is visited by the memory of Han. The two reenact the scene from Force Awakens, only this time Kylo throws his lightsaber into the sea and renounces the name Kylo Ren to become simply Ben again. Meanwhile the First Order blow up Poe's home planet where the droid technician and Poe's old crew were, although they had managed to get offworld by that point. Also, R2-D2 restores C-3PO's memory wipe by finding a backup which contains everything from before the mission.

Luke lifts his X-Wing from the waves and Rey scavenges the Sith McGuffin from the flaming wreck of Kylo's ship. As she proceeds to the Sith planet she sends out a beacon to track her progress, giving the entire galaxy a map to the Sith fleet. Poe, now leader of the Resistance, sends Lando with the Falcon and Nien Nunb to gather any forces they can, all the ones who refused to aid them in The Last Jedi, while the rest of the Resistance gears up to attack Sheev's fleet before they can leave the storm cloud. The initial plan is to destroy the navigation device which orients them to the rest of the galaxy without which the fleet cannot leave, until the commander of the flagship (a former Imperial officer) realizes what they are doing and orders it to be shut down so his own ship could serve as the navigation for the rest. Rey confronts Sheev in a coliseum/throne room full of the Cultist parents of the personnel of the fleet (VD) and is informed of his plan to have her kill him so all the Sith could merge with her and rule as basically the God Emperor of Star Wars. She raises her lightsaber before using the strange wormhole Force connection thing they have to pass it to Ben, who had gotten there with a salvaged TIE from the Death Star wreckage and was being beaten by his former servants, the Knights Of Ren. Armed with Luke's old lightsaber he kills them and proceeds to the throne room. Ben arrives and the two attempt to fight him. He simply Force Pushes them back and forces them to kneel before draining a portion of their souls, the "two bodies one soul" thing apparently being a massive source of Force power he can heal himself with to rule in his own rejuvenated body again (but with Darth Maul eyes) rather than Rey's. Meanwhile, the ex-Stormtroopers and Resistance ground personnel lead by Finn land on the flagship Star Destroyer (its still in the atmosphere of the Sith planet, thus gravity and breathable air applies) and due to bringing goat-horse things from Endor are not affected by onboard EMP that would otherwise short out speeders and tanks (which is a thing from past canon, mostly comics and novels, which they use to explain why such a thing doesn't happen more often). Meanwhile, Lando appears with a fucking enormous fleet (remember the backstory that the New Republic didn't have a fleet, instead paying for every planet to have a militia of their own which would unite when there was a big enough threat? Well, JJ finally remembered because all those fucks show up alongside a neat little game of "spot that ship from the series you know" in a few shots). They begin attacking the superweapons underneath the Star Destroyers directly, causing chain reactions that blow the entire ship.

Ben is Force-pushed by Sheev into a pit as revenge for how Vader did the same thing to him before taunting the dying Rey and unleashing a MASSIVE Force Lightning storm which shorts out the fleet. While this is going on the spirits of all the dead Jedi (like pretty much anyone they could find to record a line from any of the past movies or shows, including Ahsoka; which is pretty lame since it means she was killed off-screen, with natural causes being unlikely since Ahsoka wouldn't have been 80 yet, and even that's below the average Togruta life expectancy, though this may not necessarily be the case according to Filoni) who inhabit her body the same way that Palpatine is currently full of all the Sith. Rey manages to stand and deflects his Force Lightning with Leia's lightsaber, which isn't enough until Ben manages to climb out of the pit and throw her Luke's lightsaber; with the two together she's able to walk close enough to Sheev for his Force Lightning to burn him, and despite this being the third fucking time this has happened he does not turn off the lightning and instead Raiders Of The Lost Ark's himself into a skeleton before blowing up and destroying not only himself but the spirits of all the past Sith. Despite Palpatine's plan being to possess Rey when she kills him, for some reason he doesn't do so. The Jedi spirits leave Rey and she dies, with the barely lingering on Ben healing her. They share a kiss (reminder that since Sheev created Anakin, they're basically cousins, and their relationship is so adversarial it makes Edward and Bella's from Twilight look healthy, something the novelization tries to claim is "purely platonic") before Ben dies. His body vanishes, as does Leia's. The Resistance/Militia fleet destroy all the Star Destroyers after Finn's ground crew hijacks one of the cannons of the flagship to shoot at the ship bridge, killing the last of the old Empire and First Order leadership.

The heroes return to the Resistance planet where they celebrate, scenes showing the rest of the galaxy shooting the last of the First Order Star Destroyers play, Chewie is given Han's old medal from A New Hope, and the ex-Stormtrooper leader is hinted to be Lando's daughter or grandaughter implying a spinoff with the two. After the celebrations Rey returns to Luke's old home on Tatooine where she buries Anakin and Leia's lightsabers, revealing she built her own from her Force vision only with yellow blades instead of red ones. An old woman who was a neighbor of Owen and Beru comments nobody had been to that place in years and asks Rey's name. Seeing the Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia, she tells the woman her name is Rey Skywalker. The End.

Because god knows this fandom can no longer agree on fucking anything anymore, there was immediately fan wars going on everywhere Star Wars fans are found. Fans accused haters of review bombing, those who hated the movie claimed the critic score (which, if you recall, is mostly people who liked The Last Jedi and hate this movie for doing a U-turn on it) vindicates them. The fan fighting probably won't ever end, since now we apparently have to reevaluate if A New Hope and the Kenner Star Wars toys were ever good in the first place because some contrarians now claim the prequels are the pinnacle of Star Wars. Whatever the case, Disney CEO Bog Iger resigned in the middle of the work week in late February 2020, indicating that the backlash and fan alienation had a deeper impact than anticipated.
</div>
</div>

==Expanded Universe==

It can be said what makes a franchise into a long term lasting thing is when a wealth of extra story and background is created that expands on the original story far beyond what there was. It could be argued Star Wars leads the race in this, as the sheer amount of extra novels, graphic novels and games based on Star Wars can and does overwhelm the ordinary fan.

===The original EU/Star Wars "Legends"===

[[Image: Choices_of_One_PB_art.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Before Cara, before Rey, before Ashoka, Nomi Sunrider or Padme... there was Mara Jade]]
The background has expanded into the distant past before the founding of the current Jedi and Sith orders and into the (not-quite-so) far future looking at the descendants of Luke Skywalker and other popular characters. Uniquely, especially considering [[Warhammer 40K|other]] [[Star Trek|franchises']] track records, the Star Wars Expanded Universe is <strike>remarkably</strike> <strike>sorta</strike> sometimes internally consistent, both with other sources within the universe and with the films themselves, at least in comparison to other comparable settings. Of course, it's got plenty of its own [[C. S. Goto|problem children]] that slipped through, and the [[skub]] mine of it all isn't much shallower than that of 40K. Good portions of it do hold up well, largely due to the efforts of Lucas' company's continuity department leaning on everyone to hold it together. One thing that greatly helps is continuity books and articles aren't afraid to make small retcons to make even the most obscure and shitty sources (like that terrible PS1 fighting game) seem like part of an organized plot. Particularly well-loved parts include characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn (a rare alien officer in the Empire and popular enough that Disney brought him back to the canon from the EU) and Mara Jade (a Force-using former agent of Emperor Palpatine who later turned good, became a Jedi Master, married Luke and had a son with him) - interestingly both were created by the same author [[Timothy Zahn]].

Upon their acquisition, Disney said "fuck it" and threw out everything but the films and the Clone Wars cartoons. Some popular old stuff got mentions or appearances (and Thrawn got to be a major character), but the overall quality is even lower than the old EU. What was set up as a major book contains phrases like "The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air" and random virtue signalling. As though to top the previous, Disney literally published a book with an entire chapter about mass wedding farts (Yes. Really.). The only good stuff is from established EU authors writing stuff far away from era of the Disney films.

The [[rage]] over the EU's scrapping was major among many fans of it, but for all Disney's shortcomings, they were in a tight spot. Towards the end all that continuity and consistency got thrown out the airlock for increasingly dumb and disjointed narratives and garbled plot threads to the point that the Star Wars logo was just about as much a sign of quality as the Nintendo approval stamp on shitty SNES games. Though they have their fans, particularly contentious parts include the grimdark invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong - forcenull space-Druchii (no no, not Comorrites though they have the pain and body modification fetishes for it, space-'''Druchii''', riding enslaved tyranid bioships) from another galaxy, a personal-sized spaceship that could blow up whole galaxies and destroy fleets on its own, Mnggal-Mnggal - mindraping gelatin lost on its way to Star Trek, and Abeloth - an ancient (she predates the Jedi and the Sith) yandere Force entity who wandered in from the Cthulhu Mythos and is so dangerous the Jedi and the Sith '''joined forces''' to fight her. It's difficult to envision how Disney could have kept the EU when even before all that it was struggling to find a market beyond the most [[neckbeards|dedicated fans]].

===The Books===

[[Image: Heir-to-the-empire-cover.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Heir to the Empire (1991): The book that started it all]]
'''The Good EU'''
* '''The Thrawn Trilogy''': The origination point for the EU, and focuses on the conflict with the Imperial remnants left over after RotJ. Named for the main villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, who went on to become one of Star Wars most well-loved characters. Basically the story "The Force Awakens" wishes it was. Also introduced Mara Jade, a sexy redhead that's everything Disney wishes Rey was and more.
* '''The Han Solo Adventures''': Star's End was the second spinoff book written and the first good one. Han and Chewie are trying to get some work done on the Falcon and wind up having to bust out some political prisoners to pay for it. Would have made for a better film than ''Solo'' did.
* '''Shadows of the Empire''': Shadows is set between ESB and RotJ and fills in the details of getting the Death Star II's plans, finding out where Han was taken, Luke building his own saber, etc by the introduction of another bounty hunter by the name of Dash Rendar. The Special Edition rerelease of ''A New Hope'' added the Outrider to the background of one scene. Most notable for the fact that it was also adapted into a video game for the N64 and PC.
*'''The Darth Bane Trilogy''': The origin of the Rule of Two for the Sith, along with a compelling protagonist and his apprentice.
* '''Revenge of the Sith''': The novelization is actually considered a serious improvement over the movie itself.

'''The Bad EU'''
* '''Jedi Academy Trilogy''': Luke sets up his academy on Yavin IV and tries to teach [[Rage|Kyp Durron]]. Imperial remnant superweapons hit ludicrous territory with the sun crusher. This was the beginning of Kevin J Anderson hammering out a couple dozen Star Wars books over about four years.
* '''Young Jedi Knights Series''': Set between Jedi Academy and New Jedi Order, mostly follows Han & Leia's kids.
* '''I, Jedi''': A retelling of the Jedi Academy Trilogy (see above) with more of Corran Horn from the first set of X-Wing books. Less derp in general but significantly more [[Mary Sue]]age of Horn.
* '''Legacy of the Force''': The survivors of the Yuuzhan Vong War are trying to rebuild the galaxy, but Jacen Solo turns Sith and becomes the main villain. The book series is infamous for nearly killing the Star Wars EU, threatening the franchise and issues between various writers years before Disney went down the same road (Jacen Solo was also a major influence for Kylo Ren). The biggest complaints were Jacen killing Mara, the heroes becoming idiots whenever they could've stopped the villains, poor dialogue, long-winded writing and the story being overstuffed with allusions to post 9/11 United States.

'''The [[Skub]] EU'''
* '''New Jedi Order''': The longest-running (19 books long) and most divisive story of the EU. Luke's married to Mara and they're rebuilding the Jedi Order while Han and Leia are trying to reconcile the New Republic and Imperial Remnants. Han and Leia are also raising three kids and Mara's got a terminal illness. Then extragalactic aliens called Yuuzhan Vong - [[Imperium of Man|religious fanatics]] with [[Tyranids|organic technology]], a thing for [[Dark Eldar|pain and body modification]] along with [[Culexus|partial immunity to The Force]] - start a war to conquer the Star Wars Galaxy. Chewie dies Majora's Mask style, Mara's illness is cured and she gives birth to Ben Skywalker, the Vong take over Coruscant, lots is learned about the Force and the bodycount goes so high it could give Warhammer 40k a run for its money (365 TRILLION; only the War in Heaven or the Fall of the Eldar had anywhere near that many deaths in one event). A real love-it-or-hate-it series, some parts were good, some were bad and some were weird.
* '''Dark Empire''': Palpatine's back to save a dying franchise decades before Disney tried it. Starts off good, falls apart fast. Known for its love-it-or-hate-it artstyle and dialogue.
* '''Courtship of Princess Leia''': Deals with another Imperial remnant. This one has force witches. It's also ''really'' silly. If you like that, raise this higher. If not, it might even drop lower.
* '''Fate of the Jedi''': People are growing dissatisfied with the Jedi Order following LotF. Luke, Ben and the remaining Jedi are trying to fix things just as a Sith Tribe emerges from hiding. Things take a turn for cosmic horror when a yandere, Force-using eldritch abomination who could doom the galaxy escapes her prison. The Sith apprentice Vestara rises through the ranks and finds herself in a Catwoman/Batman situation with Ben Skywalker. While being an OoM better than the preceding trilogy, FotJ has a very divided opinion among SW fans.

=== Disney Canon ===
[[Image:Star_Wars_Disney_Princesses.jpg|right|400px|thumb|Love it or hate it, they are now official ''Disney Princesses''.]]
It's still [[skub|debatable]] whether or not the new Canon holds up to the old EU, or learns to fix the problems that plagued it. We probably won't see what comes of it for decades to come. Disney Canon, as of 2020, seems to largely be built around the nine main movies (of course), with shows like Rebels and Clone Wars alongside anthology movies fleshing out stories that had been told in comics and books back before the Disney buy-up, but can now be seen on film.

A curious thing that has begun happening: Certain elements of the old EU is slipping into the Disney Canon. Plotlines like the Emperor returning, the Death Star plans heist and Han's path to become the smuggler we know him as all have bits and pieces from EU canon in them. In some cases, whole characters are ported in; the best example is Admiral Thrawn, who appears in Rebels. Other times, popular characters has their traits or stories ported into new ones (Finn and Cassian are both expies of Kyle Katarn, for example). This gives some credence to the argument that Lucasfilms and Disney wanted to wipe the slate with all the stories that had been told in the EU, so they could create their own, fully realized canon Star Wars setting that one could make movies - ''many'' movies - from. Considering the amount of shitty fan-fiction-esque stories the EU had, this may be for the best, but of course, storylines that people have loved for ages are also thrown out with the bathwater.

Now. Detractors of Disney-era Star Wars often talk loads about how the sequel trilogy invalidates the original trilogy, or how Disney screwed over Luke or ignored cool characters like Kyle Katarn. These are semi-valid arguments of course, but they ignore some of the biggest issues with the EU originally - it wasn't sponsored by George Lucas and Lucasfilms. They were sponsored fan-fiction in a sense, semi-canon from the outset and not really something that could be considered a part of the Star Wars setting. In fact, George never really considered them real stories; more like a parallel universe of his own Star Wars works. He accepted it because they bring in the big bucks when people would beg to have the official Star Wars logo on anything they produced.

That, and the sequel trilogy, underwhelming as it may be, was George's idea in broad strokes. The series was always going to have a sequel trilogy, and while the outcome isn't exactly what he (or we) wanted, quite a lot of it is. Luke being an exile on a far-away planet, who has to be roused to fight by a new, female Jedi? George's idea, not Disney's. If anything, much of the direction comes from Lucasfilms; Disney just wants the movie to sell well. It's similar with Marvel nowadays.

So for better or worse, the Disney Canon is the first time the wider setting of Star Wars beyond the series and movies have become irrevocably canon, rather than "kinda-sorta-canon". Much of what we've gotten that is new is based roughly on George's own work as well. Remember this when discussing EU vs Disney in Star Wars - Either setting is cool for their own reasons, but the Mouse got little to do with it - and if you don't like it, bring it up with big man Lucas. Whatever the case, with Bob Iger's resignation as CEO from Disney (likely not on his terms, as he stated multiple times he would retire in 2021), things are changing (for better or worse).

==Star Wars:The Television Shows==
===Star Wars:The Clone Wars===
Technically, there are two series called similar titles. The first was 2004's ''Star Wars: Clone Wars'', an animated miniseries made by Genndy Tartakovsky (He of Dexter's Lab and [[Samurai Jack]] fame) chronicling, among other things, the titular Clone Wars and introducing a much more sinister General Grievous to the world.

But then we have ''The Clone Wars'', a CGI animated series (and tie-in movie) that we'll be talking about more and contributed more to the EU. One of the most universally known and loved parts of Star Wars, most fans worth their action figures and limited edition movie sets have watched the show and have an opinion on it one way or another. Some of the most notable characteristics are:

* The Clone Troopers are fleshed out,and we see that they are manly motherfuckers who make Guardsmen's balls of steel look like the cardboard their armor is made out of (seriously, in the movie, they literally charge straight into close combat with ''giant armored walkers with large guns'' and jump off roofs to get top of them to shoot them point blank, and punch droids in the face)
* Anakin Skywalker is actually a good, fleshed out character, with a good voice actor and shows his descent to child-murdering Force-choking asshat wasn't just him going 'welp, guess I'll fall to the Dark Side.' There was a fair amount of bad-cop “it was him or me” murder to get there.
* Introduces Ashoka Tano, a major character who's a female Togruta Jedi that's well-written, non-OP, non-Mary Sue and doesn't invalidate characters from the movies. Starts off a bit annoying in the Clone Wars movie, but manages to do something truly special: she ''learns''. Over the course of Clone Wars and Rebels, Ashoka probably has the most character development out of any other Star Wars character.
* Obi-Wan being a sexy one-liner spouting sarcastic badass.
* And many others.

However, there were some pretty derp moments too, such as

* Babysitting episode/movie.
* D-squad, where a bunch of droids become heroes of the Republic.
* Mandalore and how it's fluff was basically screwed 180 degrees, and then some.
* Droids were comic relief of the first and second seasons. It was annoying.

All in all, it was an good show that took some time to find it's feet.

After many years, a seventh season was been announced in an attempt to take away from ''The Last Jedi'' being shit and add ''something'' to the empty Disney Plus lineup. At least some of the episodes will be ones that were in production when the show ended. It promptly disappeared after that announcement for a couple years till it was announced it's coming out in 2019.

===Star Wars: Rebels===
[[Image:WomanYellingAtLothcat.jpeg|right|400px|thumb|''Stop fooling our plan, you rebel scum!'']]
Now that Disney owns Star Wars they can't go a season without something new to run on Disney XD, so after ''The Clone Wars'' ended they needed a series to milk episodes out of and launched ''Rebels''. ''Rebels'' is set a few years before ''A New Hope'' and covers the early formation of the rebellion from the perspective of one cell focused on the planet Lothal. If you liked ''Rogue One'' but thought it should be about 25 hours long and done in cartoony CGI then this is the show for you.

So what did we see in ''Rebels''?

* Grand Admiral Thrawn makes his debut in Disney Star Wars, along with the TIE Defender project. The character doesn’t lose much in the translation, and later on is arguably treated better than the source.
* The bearded old guy in the Endor strike team in RotJ turns out to be Captain Rex. Fan theory at first, later confirmed.
* You CAN [[combi-weapon]] a lightsaber and a blaster, and it's OP as shit
* Force wolves (no, not [[Rune Priest|those force wolves]])
* [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones-style]] Mandos (Krownest is pretty much Space-Winterfell).
* Imperial Inquisitors. Sure they don’t last long, but they were intimidating while they were, and it planted the seed that was used elsewhere.
* Some good appearances by Darth Vader.

So about the wolves... ''Rebels'' turns the force mysticism up past 11. Forget just being precog space monks with laser swords; as far as ''Rebels'' is concerned the Jedi are [[craftworld]] [[eldar]] without the racism. Rebels picks up the torch of the Clone Wars “Force Gods” and mixes in some of the straight-up fantasy shit from the Lucas era novels and the KOTOR/Old Republic Jedi philosophy schools and heresies beyond just “Light good, Dark bad”.

However, there were levels of derp that we got to see in this show, such as the following:

* Since this is a Disney cartoon, the bad guys can't have even a temporary victory. This changes Thrawn and the other Imperials from an imposing force to [[Abbadon|cartoon villains]], although Rebels villains manage to stay intimidating more than Grievous did in Clone Wars.
* Battles slower paced than a Death Guard movement phase. Enjoy characters having full conversations in cover-based shooting when everyone has Stormtrooper aim.
* Lightsabers the shape of toothpicks.
* [[Bullshit|Helicopter lightsabers]]
* Complete bipolarity in tone. This can create some great moments, but invariably ruins the mood episode by episode, or between the A and B plots.
* Iron Squadron. Just...fucking [[Rage|Iron Squadron]]
* Star Destroyers look terrible, mostly due to their bridge towers being way taller than they should be.

All in all, it depends on your preference.

Since the show does have a fair amount of dedicated fans, <strike>likely</strike> possibly more than the sequel trilogy itself, Disney has made a habit of planting Easter Egg references to Rebels in basically everything moving forward, usually in the form of an appearance by the iconic ship The Ghost or the friendly-ish space pirate character Hondo Ohnaka.

===Star Wars: Resistance===
Annnd they had to go and change things again. With ''Rebels'' coming to a close and a burning need to keep Star Wars on their lineup, Disney had a choice: find a new plot and setting for a formula and art style that had produced two successful multi-season shows, or throw it all out and start from scratch. Remember, this is Disney we're talking about, the company that once [[Fail|paid a quarter billion dollars to fire the producer who made ''The Little Mermaid'', ''Beauty and the Beast'', ''Aladdin'', and ''The Lion King'']] only for him to go and [[profit|found Dreamworks]] out of spite.

Like its predecessor, ''Star Wars: Resistance'' sets itself up as a prequel to a trilogy, in this case following the early days of the Resistance in its fight against the First Order. Where it differs from ''Rebels'' is that ''Resistance'' is playing the warm up act for a trilogy that nobody likes. On top of which, the creators abandoned the 3D style that ''Rebels'' inherited from ''The Clone Wars'', and replaced it with a cel style that's half ''Treasure Planet'', half ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' and all ''RWBY''.

To be blunt, this show is 100% pure crystal derp. Our star is Kazuda Xiono, a manic depressive who literally fanboy-ed his way into being a spy under the cover story of being a mechanic, two jobs he is not qualified for. This kid is the Invader Zim of Star Wars. Filling out the cast we have the original only cockney girl in space, an autistic alien, their widower boss who is definitely gonna die, D.Va and her ex-imperial officer dad, and BB-8. Poe Dameron shows up regularly so he can be Ace Fucking Rimmer without having to compete against Rey for the TOP SUE trophy. Reception was so terrible it was confirmed canceled at 2 seasons before the second season even started.

Part of the problem with ''Resistance'' is that the First Order has a doomfort that can frag planets across the galaxy, yet has to resort to hiring pirates to encourage settlements into accepting the First Order's protection racket. Palpy's empire was a model of efficient, heavy handed governance; its evil intent veiled from the masses who mostly resent it for bringing order. The First Order on the other hand is basically just Cobra Command, a font of evil hamstrung by flailing incompetence. As mentioned earlier, the backstory for the Resistance and First Order is basically that the First Order are a mobile pirate fleet with one untested secret base weapon lead by old farts of dubious actual leadership abilities from the Empire and their fanatical children with grunts made up of brainwashed child soldiers kidnapped from pioneer settlements while the Resistance is just a tiny militia that is so poorly funded they don’t even qualify as a single fleet since their few outdated capital ships are crewed by outdated droids and they don’t even have enough fighters to protect them, but rather than depict the potentially interesting dynamic this suggests the series just tries to be Rebels again, the same path the movies took even though at this point both factions are even smaller than they were in the movies.

===Star Wars: The Mandalorian===

[[Image:The_mandalorian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Goblin Slayer|''Bounties?'']]]]
Because Disney didn't have enough money, they decided to try their hand at streaming services (despite already owning Hulu), and created Disney+ as a collection of their shows and movies. And with any streaming service, you need a flagship title. Thus, ''The Mandalorian'', the first live action Star Wars television series.

The show itself lives and breaths off your nostalgia for the Fetts, giving you a new lead character wearing the cool ass armor, bounty hunting, getting in gunfights, et cetera. The show's set five years after ''Return of the Jedi'', and leans into spaghetti western's so hard you wonder why Clint Eastwood hasn't shown up. Whether you like this show pretty much comes down to the question of can you accept [[Goblin Slayer|a show where the main character's face is never seen]] and whose name is almost never spoken (probably, considering this site's demographics), and can you stand a story wrapped entirely around the finger of a baby yoda who is the most well know spoiler since (joke.exe).

If you like the 2012 [[Adeptus_Arbites|Judge Dredd]] movie you will like the show. It also might be one of the closest depictions of a Space Marine we are going to get for the foreseeable future on the "big screen". The Mandalorians (this group at least) have become almost a cult regarding "The Way" their warrior code. Highlights include a [[Looted]] [[All_Terrain_Soup|AT-ST]], getting to watch a [[Men_of_Iron|IG-11]] aimbot entire groups of hostiles multiple times, (hell just watching IG-11 ''move'' is amazing). The final two episodes are a callback to almost every episode except "The Prisoner" & "The Gunslinger" and numerous characters return and get to be their own brand awesome.

There are several hiccups in writing but those might be smoothed out later, or can just be written off as the galaxy being just that big and individuals not having the same info as the audience. Overall it is the most well received addition to Star Wars since ''Jedi''. With the show actually understanding why and how certain reveals should work, ie. not making there be anything special to us (the audience) about the Mandalorian's face/name, it is special because of his code not because he has laser eyes or something.

==Wookieepedia==
One of the largest fan wikis ever created, this bad boy is extensively cited, has enormous variety, and has page upon page of talk. It was if Lexicanum, the 40k fan wiki, and our own glorious site were fused into a terrible beast.

==Impact on 1d4chan and associated games etc==

Star Wars has had subtle and clear impacts on a number of other franchises and genres and it can be ''incredibly'' hard to gauge the extent of it all. Certainly it didn't create the concepts of sci-fi, space battles, sweeping storylines, and a blending of mystical and scientific ideas, but it certainly popularized them during the years of the original trilogy and influenced many people that would go on to have interests in sci-fi, fantasy and epic adventure today.

Hell, look me in the eye and tell me that the lightsaber didn't give us the [[power weapon]]. But then again, magic weapons.
==Sabacc and Pazaak==
A rather unusual entry here but it's well in line, Sabacc is an actual tabletop card game from the Star Wars universe which is basically a hybrid of Poker and Blackjack. A Sabacc Deck has 76 cards, most of which in four suits of 16 cards numbered one to 16, plus sixteen wildcards in two sets with values that were either negative or (in the case of the Idiot) Zero. The goal of the game is to have a set of three cards who's total as close as possible to, but not over, 23 or -23. If you got 23/-23 (Pure Sabacc) which could only be beaten by an Idiot's Array (One Idiot, a two and a three, thus 23). The stakes are raised every cycle until the cards go down or one player is left standing who gets the pot.

The notable thing about Sabacc that sets it apart from real world card games is that the Cards can change value every turn. A Pure Sabacc can easily become an instant lose 25 and an absolutely lousy hand can become an Idiot's Array. They can be stabilized to fix their value, but everyone knows when you do so. This feature has so far prevented Sabacc from being released in tabletop form as of yet. ''(Of course, there are ways to deal with this, such as simply re-dealing unfixed cards, but never let it be said that nerds will choose practicality over purity.)''

In universe, Han Solo won the Millenium Falcon off Lando in a game of Sabacc.

Pazaak is an older game from an in-universe perspective, similar to Blackjack but its player versus player rather than player versus dealer and also has some aspects of a collectible card game. Goal of the game is to raise cards from the main deck until their total value is 20 or they can also choose to stand if they get close but don't want to risk it. Best out of five wins.

CCG-aspect of Pazaak comes from the sidedeck: both players collect ten cards for their side deck and then randomly take four cards from their side deck to their hand in the beginning of the game. Hand cards are used to either lower or raise the total value: so if the player raises cards from the main deck to the total value of 25, they can prevent dropping out if they have a -5 card or higher in their hand.
Cards which only either raise or lower the value are the most common of the side cards.
More rarer are cards which can be used to both raise and lower the value.
Then there are flip cards, which change certain main deck cards on the table to negative ones. So if the player plays a 2&4 flip card, all 2:s and 4:s on the table become -2:s and -4:s. Flip cards exist in 2&4:s and 3&6:s.
Then there is the double card, which doubles the value of the last played card. So if the player raises a 5 from the main deck, playing the double card would turn it into a 10.
Finally, the rarest side deck card is the tiebreaker, which grants the player a win if the game would otherwise end in a tie.

==Tabletop games for Star Wars==

=== Role-playing Games ===

[[West End Games]] made a Star Wars [[role-playing game]] called [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] AKA '''Star Wars D6'''. Like many West End products, it's a good game with the great misfortune of being published by West End games.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] picked up the license later and made two distinct RPGs based on their [[d20 System]], called [[Star Wars D20]] (imaginatively). Could be fun, but generally broken as hell, much like [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|its parent game]]. It was then utterly revised that into what they called the '''Saga Edition''', which is relatively balanced and pretty good.

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars Roleplaying Game|a whole line of Star Wars-themed RPGs]], each one focusing on a specific style of play. You want to play a bunch of scruffy space outlaws (Edge of the Empire), members of the nascent Rebellion (Age of Rebellion), or exiled Jedi Knights (Force and Dedtiny), then they got you covered. Unlike their [[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]] games, which are all ''juuuuust'' different enough from one another to completely buttfuck any attempts at blending, all three gamelines use identical mechanics and are fully cross-compatible. Uses symbol-counting [[dice pool]]s with ludicrously overpriced custom dice.
Like the other RPGs they decided with the retardedly similar name, and thus this one is sometimes called '''Star Wars FFG''' to avoid confusion.

FFG have kept milking the franchise and in summer 2017, decided to [[Necromancer | reanimate]] the [[Star Wars RPG|Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game]] with a "30th Year Anniversary Edition" print of the original game. It '''''finally''''' shipped in July 2018 after spending a year in limbo.

=== Card Games ===

The big [[card game]] set in the Star Wars universe is the [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]]. It's no longer produced by Decipher, but there is still a sufficiently large player community to organize annual tournaments, rule on cards, and so on. SWCCG was radically different from the norm of card games, being divided into light and dark side cards with different backings, with light and dark always playing against each other. For tournament play a player would need both a light and dark deck.

[[Wizards of the Coast]] made the [[Star Wars Trading Card Game]].

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is presently selling [[Star Wars: The Card Game]].

Obviously, nobody is capable of creating a Star Wars card game with an interesting name.

Aside from the real, physical, games there was also ''Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game''. It was a real, functioning, card game within the MMO that used all virtual cards. Unfortunately no server emulators have implemented it yet.

=== Miniature Games ===
[[Wizards of the Coast]] did a tabletop battles game imaginatively called Star Wars: Miniatures, based on an extremely dumbed down version of the D&D ruleset. The figures were meant to tie in with the Saga edition RPG, it wasn't terrible on its own, just impossible to collect for competitive play since figures came in random booster packs so you never know what you were getting for what faction. Who could possibly stand for that?

[[Fantasy Flight Games]] is producing the [[X-Wing]] miniatures game based on individual starfighter combat (because, let's be honest, that's what ''Star'' Wars is all about). They have also released [[Star Wars: Armada]] which is a larger scale "fleet" combat simulator, using capital ships and squadrons of starfighters.

'''Star Wars: Imperial Assault'''

The latest [[Fantasy Flight Games]] addition to its Star Wars related games is a mix between a miniature board game and a skirmish wargame. It has two play modes:

One for campaign play where 1-4 players control a team of Rebel heroes and another player has the role of the DM, who controls the Imperial forces. The campaign, as the name suggests, focuses on character personalization, xp gain and the like, which you can find in any light RPG-esque (board)game. The main goal is to get a few friends together and casually play through the missions. Think of it as a Star Wars version of the original [[Hero Quest]].

The other play mode is skirmish play, where two players each get to assemble a team of miniatures plus a command deck (cards that have specific effects when played) and play against each other in an open-play scenario. The play area is still very limited to a few game tiles (as in a campaign mission) but players are free to bring whatever they want (with a few limitations of course). The skirmish part of Imperial assault is as close as you can get to an actual Star Wars skirmish wargame, but it is a missed opportunity from Fantasy Flight to create a true skirmish wargame (ala [[Infinity (wargame)|Infinity]]), not based on tiles and so confined spaces. Who knows what they have plans for though...

'''Star Wars Legion'''

And Fantasy Flight have now given us a fully fledged wargame, complete with AT-ST in the first wave. (They're 32mm scale, which means [[Games Workshop|no reusing your Imperial Assault miniatures]].) Legion has an integrated turn system, and the usual FF custom dice and forest worth of dead trees in cards and tokens that will be familiar to X-Wing and Armada players. The miniatures are PVC, reasonably detailed, easy to assemble pieces. A standard battle is 800 points, which could be anywhere from half a dozen to 16 units on the field, with an average army fielding 8-12 units comprising 30-ish models.

=== Board Games ===

The most famous and arguably best one is [[Star Wars: Rebellion]], an asymmetric two-player game that plays through the Original Trilogy in a wargame/worker placement-esque game. The Empire player must expand their already huge military base over the galaxy to build more ships and huge superweapons while searching for the Rebel Base, while the Rebels do their best to bite them in their heel, obscuring their movements and annoying the Empire until they have enough support to overthrow the Empire. As a [[Fantasy Flight Games|FFG]] boardgame, it's filled with a ludicrous amount of bits and pieces (including sweet models of Star Destroyers, Death Stars and Calamari Cruisers), as well as the trademark filled-with-small-exceptions ruleset. It's pretty sweet and still considered one of the best board games of its kind.

=== Card Miniature Games ===

In the late 00's, WizKids produced a short lived construct-able miniatures Star Wars game based on their styrene card system for Pirates of the Spanish Main. Although the game sold well, when NECA bought WizKids from Topps the rights did not transfer and it went out of print.

==Video Games for Star Wars==

To put it bluntly, every game which could possibly have ''Star Wars'' slapped onto it, exists. Flight simulators. Racers. Rail shooters. Doom clones. MMOs. Age of Empires reskins. Hell, there's even a Kinect variety game. Here's a few standouts...

* '''Knights of the Old Republic''': A pair of single player RPGs depicting a Sith war several thousand years before ''A New Hope''. KotOR is widely regarded as the best Star Wars video game ever, and was the framework for BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' series. Of all the Legends stuff, KotOR appears to still be in good standing with Disney since they continue to borrow from it. The sequel by Obsidian was the original skubtastic take on the franchise TLJ wanted to be but failed miserably. Got an MMO simply called "Old Republic" (since you can play as things other than Jedi and Sith) that is the sequel, which had a very rough start but stabilized enough to still survive to this day somehow). Possibly still canon in the Disney continuity since a lot of things get borrowed or referenced from it. Also the only thing in the EU to still receive new content.

* '''Jedi Knight:''' A series that started of as an early FPS named Dark Forces (so early that it was the time when FPS games were still known as [[Doom]]-clones) but Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight had the protagonist become a Jedi. The Dark Forces name was dropped in favor of Jedi Knight after this. The series combines surprisingly deep lightsaber combat with standard shooting, though the levels can get very mazy at times. Introduced Kyle Katarn, one of the most popular characters from EU. Unfortunately, there has not been a new game since 2003's ''Jedi Academy'' and likely will never be thanks to Disney.

* '''Republic Commando''': An FPS that has the player command a squad of commandos. Its a great shooter but unfortunately, it never received a sequel and to make things worse, ended on a cliffhanger. The second act of the game, set entirely on a drifting Acclamator-class assault ship is particularly memorable and highly atmospheric. If one can look past outdated graphics, its worth trying out for anyone who wants a good FPS experience.

* '''Empire at War''': Made by the original developers of [[Command and Conquer]], it is the most notable strategy game to have come out of Star Wars. Notable for featuring three different modes of play: ground battles, space battles and galactic conquest map. Though ground battles are a bit meh, the space battles are great and the galactic conquest is certainly more interesting than only playing random skirmish matches. Even though its over 10 years old, it has a very active modding community. Republic at War, which changes the games Galactic Civil War setting to Clone Wars and Thrawns Revenge, set much further into the Galactic Civil War than portrayed in the films, are particularly great. There is also a remake mod in the works, aiming to bring the game up to modern standards in terms of visuals, sound and UI and the results do look good. Unfortunately, no great 40k mod.

* '''Star Wars Galaxies''': An early MMO, launched after ''Everquest'' but before ''WoW''. Galaxies is noteworthy for making force powers a prestige achievement requiring enormous in-game effort to unlock. The first expansion pack added a subgame that's a pretty solid flight game in its own right and the game eventually added an original, fully playable, trading card game that sadly has not yet been implemented in any simulator. Then ''World of Warcraft'' hit, Sony panicked and made Jedi a starting class and replaced the skill system with massive level grind, and offered refunds to the raging army of neckbeards. Subscription numbers tanked and never recovered. It would effectively be replaced by ''The Old Republic'', an MMO using the acclaimed KotOR setting. Like most "dead" MMOs that people loved it still lives on through illegal private servers (don't worry, the guys providing it would get busted, not people playing on it).

* '''X-Wing (and TIE Fighter)''': A series of ''Wing Commander'' clones released in the 90's. While badly dated today, they were the best fighter sims of their time, and if you can get past the highly primitive graphics some people still consider them to be the best to this day. Interestingly, TIE Fighter is largely seen as the best of the series while the N64 era Rogue Squadron and Shadows Of The Empire games are seen as being far more visually modern but largely inferior sequels. Did we mention you had to use a flight stick controller basically made for these games to really do well at these?

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2005)''': Not to be confused with the one released by EA in 2017. Solid game from the new-defunct Pandemic studio (fuck you, EA) in 2005 told from the perspective of a clone trooper that survived all the way up to the battle of Hoth, with a very down to earth boots on the ground approach. Also, just being thrown into random matches as a soldier because fun. Despite some issues, it remains the high point of the Battlefront series as well as the entire PS2 era, and on PC still has fans via an active modding community to this day. There is of course also the original one but the second one pretty much completely overshadowed it.

* '''Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)''': The one by EA. You've probably heard everything important. An absolute mess at launch due to its lootbox-heavy progression system, so much so that it started discussion even on government level about lootboxes that continues to this day. A comment by EA that became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Yet despite all this, two years later, the game is arguably one of the best Star Wars experiences one can have and an Anakin-level redemption story. Like the previous Battlefront II, it completely overshadowed its predecessor.

* '''Jedi: Fallen Order''': It took them years but finally, EA managed to deliver a Star Wars game that is great on launch without cramming it with e-transactions. Its plot focuses on an unfortunate Jedi renegade between ''Revenge'' and ''A New Hope'' who's on the hunt for a hidden database that might document all the Force-sensitive individuals in the galaxy. A game inspired primarily by games such as Dark Souls and Uncharted, its a great action-adventure game in its own right and a must-play for any Star Wars fan.

* '''Monopoly Star Wars''': Its Star Wars Monopoly. With 90's FMV that plays for every square you land on. On floppy disks. Considered fucking amazing at the time, its too strange and tabletop to not mention. Also one of the last pre-Prequel things released.

* '''Super Star Wars''': A heavily modified retelling of the original trilogy (what, you don't remember how Luke chased down the Sandcrawler and murdered all the Jawas as well as their giant rat god in order to rescue R2-D2?) that was one of the ways to say "hard as fuck" by namedropping a game prior to Dark Souls existing. Amusing for the insanity of the added content in order to make a platformer sidescrolling beat'em'up as well as how neckbeardy you have to be to punish yourself trying to beat it without cheating.

* '''Star Wars: Yoda Stories''': A game geared for kids, released the same year as Monopoly above. Players play as Luke sometime after Empire Strikes Back, although an odd alternate version where Han sometimes is free from carbonite and Boba Fett and sometimes is not. They are assigned a quest by Yoda which requires them to traverse one or more procedurally generated planets doing whatever odd crap Yoda felt was necessary, including sometimes fighting Vader. Recieved middling scores as a PC release, with some individuals HATING the game and using it as a benchmark for how much they hate something when comparing the two, although to be fair that is because distributors tried to sell it like a full game when in reality its supposed to just be freebie software that came with other purchases and was meant to go with Solitaire and space pinball as default games on a computer to waste time with. It has lapsed into obscurity thanks to even those reviewers largely being forgotten on the modern internet. Noteworthy for being played on a grid with simultaneous turn-based movement with all enemies and NPCs on a screen, feeling very much like a tabletop game at times. A simple puzzle game, where getting blocked in a corner without enough space to pass the time by an idiot NPC is more dangerous than any foe.

*'''Shadows of the Empire''': Made on the Nintendo 64 and Windows PC, you play as Dash Rendar, a scoundrel in a ship like Han Solo working for the Rebellion. Takes place during Episode V as a side story. Despite being much beloved by fans for years and years, it's sadly not aged well thanks to the rather peculiar control scheme of the N64 and the graphics not having aged like cheap cheese in the sun. Main enemy of the game is a xeno named Xisor who is just a real uppity crime boss (and apparently a prince). This game has an absolute great opening first part where you're flying in a Snowspeeder on Hoth killing Imperials left and right while trying to use the cables to crash the AT-ATs like in the movie. After that the game begins to kinda just carry on with awkward controls.

==Assorted list of Awesome From Star Wars==
* Fucking ''[[Lightsaber|Lightsabers!]]''
* The fucking [[Approved music|OST]]
* What is likely the greatest duel in cinematic history, that takes place on a [[Death World|lava planet.]]
* Deathly Stormtroopers, heroic Clonetroopers or sinister First Order troopers; whatever they're called, stormtroopers are awesome!
* Darth Vader whenever he gets a speaking line or to murder rebel scum - that is to say, all the time.
* Darth Maul in both The Phantom Menace and TCW.
* Lightsaber Rifles
* The entirety of the Umbara campaign, where <s>Imperial Guardsmen</s> Clone Troopers die in the dozens attempting to win some godforsaken planet, earning them balls of titanium that make the guard look ba- {{BLAM| '''*BLAM*''' Heresy!}}
* 97% of the Creatures.
* 98% of the Starfighter designs.
* Costumes that mix about every possible inspiration, Chinese, Mongolian, Japanese, Ancient Greece and Rome, Elizabethan, Moebius or Pulp Sci-Fi from the 60's, giving the whole series a distinctive style and gives Padme Amidala an excuse to show off with all her dresses.
* Boba and Jango Fett and the rest of the Mandalorians.
* KOTOR (both games) plot making you think this shit is actually logical and has so much philosophical background. One of the creepiest depictions of the Universe. Everything is brutal, with big vibrating knives, blood, those machines for Sith snuff movies, more blood, bastards, badass bastards and so on. Everything while somebody is talking with you about existence.
* Our saviour Lord Revan. He's like if [[Horus|fucking Horus]] just became [[Big Bad Evil Guy|fucking bad]] (but not that [[Erebus|bad]]) to fucking destroy the [[Chaos Gods|Dark Gods]] so he can solve his daddy issues.
**but he's more virile, deadly, powerful, charismatic and cool.
* Lightsabers.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi.
* The High Ground.
* TIE fighters. They have the most distinctive scream of any fighter in cinematic history that just yells "I'm evil!". Tell me I'm wrong. I'll wait.
** The fact that they managed to do that using what is essentially a shitty visual pun.
* Most of Episode 3.
* The entirety of Anakin's story, especially when you add the Clone Wars and prequels. While you're at it, watch CinemaWins' perspective on it the series.
* Admiral Ackbar the Memeable!
* Palpatine getting into some Tzeentchian-level scheming and backstabbing in order to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic.
* Grand Admiral Thrawn: So awesome that he rose to a high rank in the anthropocentric Empire despite being an alien and was one of the first (and rare few) things to be imported straight from Legends to Disney.
* Imperial Pilots get a mention, seeing as they fly literal garbage fighters against superior rebel fighters. By garbage, we mean that even the Imperium have better fighter designs than these guys. At least Imperial fighters conserve the life of the fucking pilot.
* Obi-Wan Kenobi again.
* Princess, later Senator Leia Organa; the original badass-yet-hot boss lady in space. Ends up leading two separate, successful underground freedom movements against impossible odds. Did we mention she's a Jedi in both canons?
* Han Solo, who is so badass that hot Leia falls in love. He has the smuggler's best friend, a Wookie, who is also the worst opponent you can face in a [[Chess|Dejarik match]].
* Just... Star Destroyers. When you see a huge, imposing warship from an evil Empire, this is the granddaddy they all look up to.
* Oh, did we mention the lightsabers ?

== See Also: ==
* ''[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/ Darths & Droids]'': A webcomic, made using photo-stills of the ''Star Wars'' movies to tell a story about gamers blundering through each of the six movies in sequence... though not quite exactly how you might expect. Think ''DM of the Rings'' in overall visual style, though unlike ''DM of the Rings'', ''Darths & Droids'' features several heavy twists on the actual events of the films, subplots about the players and their lives outside the game alongside the campaign, and a better overall quality of gamer.
* "[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html/ Endor Holocaust]": An excellent example of the [[skub]] Star Wars can create. Rebuttal: "[http://www.darthsanddroids.net/fanart/endortruth20040810.pdf Endor Rebuttal]"
*[[Timothy Zahn]]
*[[Star Wars:The Clone Wars]]
*[[Star Wars:Rebels]]
*[[Star Wars:Resistance]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]