For example, Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Thrawn, aka Mitth'raw'nurudo was an military leader who notably played a part as one of the Empire's most cunning admirals and tacticians. Noted for his unique methods of combat that centered on making careful moves after spending time studying and researching his opponents and their habits. He's also one of the few non-humans to play a significant role within the predominantly human Empire.
Thrawn's introduction to Star Wars lore dates back to 1991 when author Timothy Zahn published the book Heir to the Empire. A book detailing the aftermath of the fall of the Empire five years after the events in Return of the Jedi, as well as the first in the "Thrawn Trilogy" novels with Dark Force Rising and The Last Command also coming out in 1992 and 1993 respectively.
Although these books aren't canon anymore in Star Wars lore post-Disney acquisition, they were instrumental in starting what would go on to be the Star Wars Expanded Universe. A huge jumbled mess of different storylines, predominantly focused on events after Episode VI or far before Episode I. Outside of this trilogy and the KOTOR video game most of these expanded universe things were honestly terrible and Disney giving them the axe was very welcome.
Thrawn is significant in that he's one of the best things to come from that EU. As such there were few characters that rivaled him in popularity in terms of who fans have been waiting to see in a medium other than novels or comic books. Maybe he could've shown up in the prequels? Or the Clone Wars cartoon? Neither of that happened but he did finally join the new Star Wars canon thanks to the Disney cartoon Star Wars Rebels.
The character wasted no time making an impact when he did finally show up.
Thrawn's noted features of being very cunning, calculating and patient carried over into the cartoon version. Complete with a calm yet sinister voice provided by Lars Mikkelsen (brother of Mads Mikkelsen who played Galen Erso in Rogue One), and an incredible haunting theme produced by Kevin Kiner.
He is ruthlessly efficient and strives to take every single battle he's a part of as a learning experience. Win or lose the key for him is always knowledge. Knowledge about the very opponents he's going up against and using their characteristics, culture and tactics against them to destroy them in the long run.
In a way Thrawn's character was a welcome sight and yet somewhat underwhelming. Not because of Thrawn himself but because he's the type of threat who, by all rights, should be more than plenty to bring down Ezra Bridger and the early Rebel Alliance. And yet the Rebels portrayal of him showed him losing small battles and the only real major victory shown on screen was nearly destroying the Rebel Alliance but just having to settle for making them flee their secret base.
The other military leaders around him often set him back more than the rebels themselves did. In a way the one thing he couldn't comprehend, the nature of The Force, is what technically led to his downfall but the Empire's inability to get anything meaningful done kinda set things up to go bad for him. Not like Disney would allow a scenario where the bad guys wins anyway.
Personally Admiral Thrawn getting bested by Bridger and his band of rebels was something I kinda saw coming anyway and accepted. I know some hardcore Thrawn stans were super pissed but luckily for me I didn't care.
No, what made me care was that Thrawn (and his species the Chiss in general) are tied to a much more interesting concept/potential threat, the Yuuzhan Vong. An outside threat to the Republic/Empire/galaxy as a whole due to how they were essentially invaders from another galaxy with advanced weapons and tactics that the galaxy had never fought against.
The new Disney canon does not have the Vong (although it has been confirmed that there were ideas to bring them into the picture in The Clone Wars), but instead it has the "Grysks" now. This is all written in Zahn's Thrawn book from 2018, Thrawn: Alliances. Thrawn vs the rebel alliance doesn't interest me nearly as much as Thrawn vs the Vong/Grysks. A true external threat that is neither Jedi or Sith that will give the galaxy a huge shakeup is extremely my shit (it's why I was a huge fan of the Eternal Empire in The Old Republic MMO).
Thrawn's fate following the liberation of Lothal in Rebels remains to be seen but Filoni has confirmed that the character is still alive. What he did afterwards is a story for another time and I just hope the Thrawn vs Grysks conflict takes precedence over whatever the Empire does because the Empire vs Rebel Alliance stuff bores me. I'm also low-key hoping it comes in the form of a movie or TV show rather than a book. Thrawn's such an interesting character that it's fun to read about him, but it's even more fun to see him fully realized as an on-screen character brought to life.
Anyway I bought the Lars Mikkelson autograph seen a few times in this post on eBay a while ago. Mainly while I was in a huge Star Wars mode while watching the final season of The Clone Wars (which I will talk about in a future post). Originally I was looking for either Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka Tano) or Sam Witwer (Darth Maul) for obvious reasons, but when I saw the Thrawn autograph for fairly cheap it was a no-brainer.
Star Wars High Tek has slowly but surely become my favorite brand of Star Wars collectible cards. The thin card stock suits me and my binder pages just fine and considering how all of my favorite Star Wars autographs are in Tek format, at this point this has stuck.
I'm still looking for Steve Blum (Zeb Orrelios), Eckstein and Witwer, and also Sarah Michelle Gellar (Seventh Sister) in Tek auto form but I'm willing to be patient with them. Eckstein and Witwer will inevitably fall back down to reasonable prices after the Clone Wars finale hype has come and gone. Buffy the Jedi Slayer might be tougher by virtue of who she is, but considering how I already have her husband Freddie Prinze Jr. in my Star Wars autograph collection I might as well.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).
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