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Yes, I broke my rule and bought it. Both the visual guide and the novel. And now this thread will be a running commentary as I go through it. Its still a little early, but don't fear, I'm sure as the night drags on I'll be driven to drink and reviews will become more entertaining. In fact, I'd say you can count on it. So what do I start with people, the guide or the book?

Get to the Malevolence! 8D (It's in the VG, I think.) I keep hearing it's made by Quarren Separatists and has a big gun (the one seen tearing up Venators in the trailer).

I'd say the book first. Traviss wrote it didn't she? You dirty, dirty man.

Get to that when you've had a few. :P

Ok, digging to find the digital camera so we have pics with this. Starting with the VG because VT asked first, hip analysis takes a bit of sobriety, and because fuck you one and all.

What, no eagerness to be literary caressed by Karen Traviss? ;)

Heretic! You touched Karen Traviss' foul book!

That aside, did someone hold her leash while she wrote it?

Good evening ladies and germs, we are tonight's entertainment! I'll be your host, assisting me will be my dear friend and compatriot Jack. Jack, give a bow, will you?



Thanks Jack, as always your assistance will be invaluable. First up tonight, is the Clone Wars Visual Guide!




Tadaa! The cover!




Written By Jason Fry. Well, now we know who to credit with the masterpiece. I'm certain a fair chunk of any stupid will be the writers, but let's see if he patches it at all, or just adds to the crap pile




Ooooh, ominious.....





Ooooh, epic.....



Ooooh, scary.....

Double check, make sure I grabbed the adult version. I did? Crap.



Oh good, we have point by point reference for major players here. Because I was gonna pick up something star wars related without knowing who the fuck the Jedi are.



And now with handy color guide! Remember guy, you can tell the good guys from the bad by color. :eng101:

New guy Cad Bane at the bottom – Dirty Harry as a Duros, with rubber piping hanging out his cheeks.





Close up of The Separatist Fleet

Small pics are a ROTS era Lucrehulk, what looks like a Coreship with a ton of extra radar dishes (which are ungodly huge – one covers 1/5th of the sphere), and what honestly looks like a flying garbage truck. That's the Malevolence there, with a radar dish on top, not a bridge tower, so this thing isn't Executor sized. Eyeballing window size I'm gonna go with ~2 km. Rough guess, later pics of the ship make me think this thing is going to shrink and expand from shot to shot. Text reads

THE SEPARATIST FLEET

Banking Clan Frigates, Trade Federation Battleships and Commerce Guild destroyers make up the bulk of the Separatist fleet – but no vessl is as mighty as the Malevolance, the massive flagship commanded by General Grievous

So yeah, expect another ship to by hyped as the ubership of doom and actually be a dinky little thing.

Other things of note, the Republic side has an Acclamator painted in red similar to the Venator, which is kinda cool. And the entry at the bottom of the Separatist page uses the plural form to talk about “fleets and droid armies”. Bottom of the Republic page says the GAR is millions of clones. Well thank god, I was getting worried. We had gotten all of 3 pages into a project Karen Traviss is involved in without repeating the 3 million bit. I was afraid it wouldn't last. Anyone want to guess at the number of pages before Mandos come up? I'll say inside 40 of the novel before we here about the Mandos. And 50 to bash Jedi.

At any rate, last page said thousands, so I guess respewing that bile is a step up.




ANAKIN! Lets see, rehash of the “he will turn to darkness hint hint”, point out that the shoulder pads he wears as Vader are on him now “Armored Chest Plate”, and look at that, they were kind enough to label the fucking lightsaber. “The Weapon of A Jedi Knight”. Wouldn't any weapon a Jedi wield be the weapon of a Jedi Knight? Oh wait, this lets you reference ANH instead of being creative. Gotcha. Lets check out the little blurb about Anakin and the 501st there “Though bred for loyalty, the clone troops have come to trust that their general will always find a path to leads to victory” Think about that. “Though we trust you we finally managed to trust you”. I'm polishing though a bottle of Jack as I read this, what the hell is his excuse?

Next up, The Jailbait!

huh, pics came through cleaner then expected.

I'm guessing that the Malevolence has those big guns that the Banking Clan Frigate and Recusant destroyer has, only bigger perhaps.

I shall call her... Mini-Hooker. After all, says she is fond of nicknames. Gotta love the “lion face” down thee in the corner. 14 years old, huh? Gotta love them child soldiers. And was 13 the “have a master of get booted out of the order” limit? Thought so. Doesn't that mean they are crapping on continuity again? Thought so. And hey, look, another character with connections to major players in the galaxy – she was found by a roaming member of the Jedi council. Also, who the fuck uses the word “moxie” anymore aside from that old guy who draws “Dick Tracy”? And hey, gotta specify that the sash is a culterual heirloom, it isn't like most folks just buy what they get on sale or anything, no it is all a huge part of their cultural identity, even if they have no connection to that culture anymore.

Apparently she is a little retard who can't even build a lightsaber properly – according to the diagram the blade emitter is on the other side from where the blade actually emits. Good job there buddy.




*sings*
Its the CIRCLE..... The Circle of LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFFEEEEEEEE!



And now its R2. Funny, I thought I bought a new book, why is everything here a direct lift from previous publications? Looks like Magnaguards have special fun time spines as well. GURI IS A 6!




Usually these things go through characters and entries in order of importance. Which means Obi-wan ranks behind the space vibrator. Tough break man. “The demands of the war have mostly separated Obi-wan and Anakin...” well, nice to see that we aren't doing anything like watering down their friendship and thus neutralizing the emotional impact of the climax of the entire fucking series.




Tankitytankitytankity. In comics, this would be a splash page. Of course comics also have the good sense not to let hack writers near their most valuable IP, and LFL doesn't. Which is why we are here introduced to the brilliantly named “General Loathsom”

Up next, the Teth offensive!

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:I'm guessing that the Malevolence has those big guns that the Banking Clan Frigate and Recusant destroyer has, only bigger perhaps.

not quite, 2 REALLY big ion cannons on those big bulges on the side

I don't usually drink at breakfast, but this is almost compelling me to. Malevolence or no. :P

Wasn't it Anthony Daniels who spilled the beans that the eleventh episode of the series would be titled "...... (spoiler) the Malevolence"?

Yeah, "Destroy Malevolence", over a year ago. This was right on the mark. 8)

Dude, I really think you're being way too hard on a kid's book.

Vympel wrote:Dude, I really think you're being way too hard on a kid's book.

I'm really not. This isn't the kids book, this is supposed to be like the DK Visual guide. And instead of that we have about 10 pages that consist only of repeating "they race to the top" again and again and again

Ender wrote:I shall call her... Mini-Hooker. After all, says she is fond of nicknames. Gotta love the “lion face” down thee in the corner. 14 years old, huh? Gotta love them child soldiers. And was 13 the “have a master of get booted out of the order” limit? Thought so. Doesn't that mean they are crapping on continuity again? Thought so.

I actually rather like it; it furthers my effort to paint the Jedi all in black. After all, this puts confirmed underage combattants (as opposed to implied such, in the form of Learner Zett) in the Lucas-level canon!

Keep bringing the technical war material stuff instead. It's gotta be less infuriating. :P

EDIT: What is that circular thing in the Republic Navy section? It looks like a cross between the Lucrehulk and something the Mon Cals came up with.

Darth Hoth wrote:

Ender wrote:I shall call her... Mini-Hooker. After all, says she is fond of nicknames. Gotta love the “lion face” down thee in the corner. 14 years old, huh? Gotta love them child soldiers. And was 13 the “have a master of get booted out of the order” limit? Thought so. Doesn't that mean they are crapping on continuity again? Thought so.

I actually rather like it; it furthers my effort to paint the Jedi all in black. After all, this puts confirmed underage combattants (as opposed to implied such, in the form of Learner Zett) in the Lucas-level canon!

Given that "underage" Jedi combatants are easily the match of an entire squad of Clonetroopers, why not? They're trained from birth for this. And while it's rather reprehensible to steal babies from their parents to train them for combat in a monastery for life, the fact that they're sent out to fight in their early teens is a logical extension of that.

Also, you're helping Karen Traviss! Stop!

Ugh.

I really don't like the visual style that was chosen for TCW, and the official visual guide being done in such a childish way isn't exactly making me want to see it.

And they have the clone army number in the millions? What the fuck? It's sad how the reference books that once refuted minimalism have now fallen victim to it.

Anyone remember "Lando's winning smile" in the old DK books? This is nothing new.

Also LFL are retards who can't count past million. Pay it no mind.

Darth Onasi wrote:Given that "underage" Jedi combatants are easily the match of an entire squad of Clonetroopers, why not? They're trained from birth for this. And while it's rather reprehensible to steal babies from their parents to train them for combat in a monastery for life, the fact that they're sent out to fight in their early teens is a logical extension of that.

Well, yes. It is logical, rational. It is also wholly morally bankrupt, though; children are children, even if they are trained as living weapons.

Also, you're helping Karen Traviss! Stop!

Well, that might be a reason as good as any to desist.

But really, do not accord her stupidities that much attention. Her so-called criticism of the Jedi is as preposterous as it is unsupported by the facts. The saddest thing, perhaps, is that her atrocious example makes legitimate anti-Jediism all that much harder to present.

Fun fact: Traviss was the first one to present the Old Republic using children on the frontlines with her 15 year old superstar padawan in Hard Contact. This ground to a halt last night when Imageshack started being a bitch and stalling out on the uploads. Having sobered up some, this will be more coherent, but also more painful.

So without further ado, the Teth Offensive!




Movin on up, to the East Side...

Gotta climb a half a mile of vertical cliff to get there. Makes you wonder how the folks who live there get around. A road? No, that's just silly. Anyway, this is defended by 2 battalions of droids, so what do you do in those cases? Have a fun time race. How do I know this? They keep repeating it over and over and over, like a fucking LOL cat meme. 4 times on two pages. And the ascension cables are attached to the guns, not the clone's waists or anything. They must have one heck of a grip. But they are still safety conscientious. For example, the AT-TE gunner must be wearing a seat belt. I mean, he is just sitting, there perfectly calm, completely upside down.




Gunships! Which, in a tip of the hat to the old WW2 style fighter-bombers, have designs pained on them. One features Salicious Crumb, and is named the Crumb Bomber. The a blue twilek, who is actually wearing more clothing then Mini-Hooker. Of technical note, apparently they ditched the extra hamster ball style guns that clones rode in, and the lasers are described as "variable-intensity"




Walkers! Which are apparently used in space combat as well - they climb over asteroids like roaches, and shoot at capital ships. Didn't we have some fuckwit here a while back arguing that ISDs should keep AT-ATs floating around them with tractor beams to shoot other ships? Apparently he got a job writing this new series. The projectile cannon is now a missile launcher, but then a projectile cannon again. Wait, I'm sorry, tracing the line it is the clone gunner's head which is actually the projectile cannon. Someone reads Schlock Mercenary! These babies have, I shit you not, "turbo-fired toe grips". Also, we learn the padawan is racing her master to the front(thank god, I keep forgetting what she is doing). Anyway, Mini-Hooker apparently emulates Britney Spears. She's give the clones an eye-full on both pages here. Stay classy LFL.




Captain Rex. He thinks Anakin "would make a fine clone", because Jedi suck, lolz. He's a professional, a man's man, who combines a commando's gift for improvisation with an infantryman's toughness. You know Commandos - a bunch of bitchy little girls. Man has to have his secrets - he won't tell anyone how he got the nickname Rex.




Clone Officers. Welp, I'll go easy here because I rather like Cody. Reafirm that Jedi aren't all the officers. Cody is Obi-wan's second in command, because apparently a clone commander outranks the other Generals like Anakin. Here we are introduced to Admiral Yularen

Non-clone Admiral Wullf Yularen commands Anakin's fleet - and often worries about the Jedi general's apparent attraction to dangerous tactics. He is a by-the-book officer, increasingly obsessed with security

So it looks like IP's patch would hold - guy retires and enrolls with the ISB. We also meet Commander Wolffe, who is sporting a unique rank badge - top row is 2 red, 1 blue. Cant see if thee is a bottom row. Meanwhile, Commander Praji in ANH had 4 blue, 2 red. Also, light blue is apparently some kind of working uniform. And Commaders Fox and Gree, with Fox hinting some episodes will be on Coruscant.




CLONES FOR THE CLONE WAR! Not much of not here - instead of brothers or Nerg Vogue or whatever nonsense Traviss claims, they think of each other as "Batchers". Cute; also confirms multiple batches, which hurts 3 mil flat no questions. Also states the leaving cover to charge in is typical - "On Christophsis, Obi-wan witnesses bravery typical of his troops: A charge in the face of wave after wave of droids" Rookie clones are called "Shinies", how do you have rookies if there is a fixed number of you at 3 million and you all get deployed at once???????




BATTLE DROIDS FOR THE... yeah fuck it, that's enough 40k references for now. Droids do things like carry around parts of other destroyed droids. Wow, almost like they are mourning. LOL, stupid droids. It may just be the frame they captured, but it looks like Battle droids are no using some kind of beam weapon instead of bolt. Which could be very interesting.

Oh, and in case you missed it in the picture:

They're not smart, but they're not supposoded to be. Rather, battle droids are simple, sturdy machines designed to overwhelm enemies through sheer numbers. Estimates put the number of droids destroyed in the quintillions. But however many battle droids the Republic destroys, more are always on the way.

And on that note, lunch!

Ender wrote:Fun fact: Traviss was the first one to present the Old Republic using children on the frontlines with her 15 year old superstar padawan in Hard Contact.

This is not so; the "Padawan Pack" in Republic story arc The Battle for Jabiim predates her by more than a year in publishing date. The Jedi in question are referred to as "children" by friend and foe alike and portrayed as being in their teens (Anakin Skywalker being the exception). Then there is of course the matter of Lord Hoth's "Army of Light" sending ten-year-olds such as Darovit, Hardin et al to the frontlines in the Battle of Ruusan (the Jedi vs Sith comic is the primary source).

They're not smart, but they're not supposoded to be. Rather, battle droids are simple, sturdy machines designed to overwhelm enemies through sheer numbers. Estimates put the number of droids destroyed in the quintillions. But however many battle droids the Republic destroys, more are always on the way.

And on that note, lunch!

That's the spirit! Take that, Traviss!