They're not really self-contained. Phase 4 is closer to a fresh start than Phase 5 appears to be. Phase 3 and particularly Avengers: Endgame was the culmination of basically all of the first three phases. But Phase 4 also contains things that don't feel like they would work as well without any advanced knowledge. Honestly, I'm not sure there's a ground floor that isn't the start of Phase 1. Of course, like joining almost anything midway through, it doesn't mean you can't just pick up what you can of the story and move forward, but I don't think there's another way to consume it where you'll know everything relevant to the ongoing story. There's never been any hard reset/reboot.

The first movie of Phase 1 is Iron Man. While traditionally I haven't been big on superhero stuff, I watched and loved that one, actually bought it and watched a number of times. I did also watch Incredible Hulk due to my love of Ed Norton (didn't love it), and then Iron Man 2 because of my love of the original Iron Man (it's solid but well under the original), but had no idea I was watching the first movies of phase one of a long-term MCU project, and I basically just ignored the superhero movies that kept getting released after that. Didn't really even know that MCU was an ongoing thing. A friend sold me on it back in December, and I went and slammed through the whole catalog. I underestimated the level of artistry involved in what they were doing. Lots of really great stuff and very few bad movies. But no question it's a big undertaking since there are 28 movies released now, and they've also now added short TV series to the mix.

Also it's still completely crazy to me that Kevin Feige actually went as far as to release a statement about Hulk after the fact to say (paraphrasing), "This is not a money decision: we are going to stop casting Edward Norton as the Hulk because, going forward, we would prefer to work alongside someone who isn't a huge *******. We have a lot of really great collaborative talents in the MCU, including [insert everyone who had starred in a movie and wasn't named Edward Norton], and we appreciate what they do."

I don't disbelieve that Norton has earned his reputation, but man oh man his behavior must be over-the-top, since I'm quite certain that he's not the only great actor who is awful to work with yet he's the only one I can remember getting shunned by the industry to this extent for on-set behavior.

I'm an idiot. When you mentioned Sabine, I thought you were talking about Obi-Wan's girlfriend (I forgot her name is Satine), and I was thinking "Wat? They're bringing her back from the dead?!?" It didn't even occur to me that you were talking about the Mandalorian girl.

But yah, she's starting to get more interesting with the darksaber episodes and Season 3 in general has been a step up. The main change is that the main cast has been fleshed out more and are finally starting to get interesting. Season 1 was kind of a waste up until the closing episodes, and I felt like the main group were just boring, copy-and-paste good guys. I still think Zeb is meh, but the rest are starting to grow on me.

"Somehow, Satine returned" just doesn't have the same ring. With the track record of Star Wars, you could be forgiven for thinking that they would unapologetically resurrect basically anyone at any time.

How was Satine killed? If she was cut in half or gutted, she's got a 50/50 chance.

I've also probably mentioned this somewhere, but Zeb is the original design for Chewbacca.

Darksaber thru the mid-section. How are survivability rates with darksaber wounds vs. lightsaber?

Just finished S3 of Rebels. There were a lot of really good episodes, but no great ones (apart from Obi-Wan v. Maul). I'd say it was another step up for the series and S4 looks even better judging by RatingGraph. Rebels is starting to grow on me, and with a strong enough S4, I might give it the edge over Clone Wars. But the series are super close and it probably comes to preference of main cast characters.

CW has elite protagonists (Jedi), but lots of place holder antagonists (Grievous, Trench, random robots)

Rebels is the reverse. You get Thrawn in many episodes, who is one of the GOATs, a lot of Maul, some Vader, etc. But the main cast of protagonists isn't quite as interesting.

The underlying story is also a lot better in Rebels. CW battles between clones and stupid robots just aren't really that compelling compared to the Rebellion beginning to grow and link together cells in a larger plan to thwart the Empire.

Last point: It's been a hella rough 7 years for Obi-Wan. He went from looking relatively young in the Obi-Wan series to looking like Alec Guinness in Rebels. That Tatooine climate is no joke!

I didn't love Twin Suns since it essentially felt like they were subverting Rebels in order to feature some mostly unrelated Obi-Wan Kenobi story for an episode.

It's all connected man.

He only has 10 years to get there.

Good summation though. The Sith are a bit more intimidating than droid armies and that's a lot of what did it for me too. I'm guessing Rebels is going to pass CW for you sometime this next season as it did for me.

Yah, they'd been setting up for that showdown for several episodes/seasons in Rebels. Maul calling out to Ezra to try to trick him into being his apprentice, then the holocrons, then the showdown at the Sith Temple. All of it was so Maul could figure out the location of Obi-Wan. Maul had also tricked Ezra into thinking Obi-Wan was the key to the Rebellion and bringing down the Sith, so it makes sense that he'd want to stop Maul. Plus you needed to kill of Maul before ANH and Obi-Wan finally doing it seemed like a fitting end.

I don't know if I'm just a massive Maul mark, but every single episode he appeared in in CW and Rebels would be a 9 or 10 for me. Dude just always brings it.

Well, I finished S4. It was a shorter season and there were 4 stinkers, so the remaining 12 eps didn't take too long.

S4E10 is definitely a top 3 episode of the series, but kinda felt like it peaked there. I was a bit let down by the closing 5 episodes and then the final battle is turned by giant whales? Why not just use those things to destroy the Death Star and the entire Imperial Fleet if we're going full silly?

S4 was a bit weaker than I'd expected, and I'd probably put it behind S3, but still pretty good and overall I'd say it's impossible to choose between CW or Rebels, they are neck and neck for me. Perhaps if I'd gotten thru the worst episodes, that might swing it towards Rebels, since they're supposed to be better than the worst CW episodes.

The inclusion of Vader kinda seems odd to me. Like he showed up early on and then never again? Wouldn't the Emperor have sent him to subdue Ezra or kill Kanan Jarrus? I can't imagine there would be anything else more important for Vader to do than trying to eliminate the threats in Rebels.

Now, I'm onto Rogue 1 and then the Original Trilogy, followed by Mando. I think S2 of Mando will be much more interesting on rewatch given that CW and Rebels have fleshed out some of the key characters. Like I didn't even know who Cad Bane or Bo-Katan were and barely knew Ahsoka, and now they're some of my fave characters, so it should be way more fulfilling seeing their live action versions.

There is surprisingly less SW material than I thought. I guess besides the movies, a couple series, and a couple cartoons, there isn't a ton of Canon material. It should be fun to knock out a couple books once I've watched everything SW and then there's a slew of cool SW projects set to launch over the next year. Ahsoka, S3 Mando, and Tales of the Jedi have especially caught my eye.

Tales of the Jedi does look intriguing. We're going to get more of Ahsoka's background there.

S04E10 stood alone as my highest-rated episode of the series, but I still liked all of the remaining episodes.

I always kind of liked them bringing the Mortis trilogy back in Rebels and kinda hoped Ezra would find the right door to stop the sequel trilogy from being made.

This is especially true when you just take IMDb's word for it on every episode. I'm generally very pro-IMDb, but I just know it would drive me nuts to skip past episodes during a series.

I'm guessing based on your description that you may have bypassed S02E19, which I found to be a standout hilarious episode even if there wasn't a huge point to it. It draws an IMDb 7.4 but I gave it an 8. AP-5 is hilarious. Feels like the same creative mind that went into K-2S0, who showed up in Rogue One (released later that same year that S02E19 was released).

I'm only skipping stuff in cartoons, I plan to watch every second of every live action movie/series. And once I'm done with everything else, I may catch up on the CW/Rebels episodes I skipped just for completeness sake. Although I think going thru every episode of Bad Batch will be a chore.

I found IMDB to be pretty accurate for CW, but there were several ratings I disagreed with for Rebels.

I was surprised the Mandalorian 2-parter to start S4 only got a 7.7. You had some advancing of the Mandalore saga as well as Bo-Katan being given the darksaber and then taking on the role as leader of Mandalore. Seems like a pretty big f'n deal. I gave that episode a 9.

The stuff after S4E10 is all overrated. There were 3 episodes around a 9.5, but really, I think all those episodes were more in the 8 range.

I'm surprised there wasn't more outrage at the f'n whales saving the day being the big "plan" to turn the tide for the Rebels. You could've just had Mon Mothma deciding that there was value in winning the battle there or Ahsoka or something as the thing that swung the battle.

Also, hate that they brought back the clones and Rex. Maybe give them that 1 episode for nostalgia's sake, but seeing that fat oaf with his stupid beard put me on tilt every time. I dislike the clones in general though.

Damn. Rex hate? I would have just assumed that's not even a thing.

I came back to this because I started reading the ROTS novelization, and the book makes it 100% explicit that Dooku was knowingly in on the Palpatine plot; somehow I thought we had been discussing Dooku upthread when this came up, but I see that isn't the case.

I had never been fully sure as to how much Dooku knew, though it did feel like there was a visual hint for a split-second of the ROTS movie, when he seems to flash a feeling of betrayal across his face when Palpatine says "kill him" to Anakin. The book leaves no doubt as to the extent of Dooku's knowledge though.

It always felt like an open question, because it's pretty clear that Sidious ****s with even his apprentices and carries out plans unbeknownst to them.

It's been so long since I've read that, but are you saying that Dooku knew that he was going to be sacrificed?

Just finishing up the Solo novelization. The only new stuff is extra background on Qi'ra and L3's merge with the Falcon.

Dooku’s flaw, and that of most Sith Lords and Dark Jedi, was hubris. For some reason, he never thought Sidious would betray him. In fact, I’m pretty sure Dooku thought he could overthrow Sidious himself after the galaxy had settled.

He was trying to do the whole, “Evil acts for the greater good” thing. Many have tried this in Star Wars. The problem is, once you start feeding off the dark side of the force, that **** starts to warp your mind.

No, his life being sacrificed was a double-cross. The plan was for Dooku to be captured and taken prisoner. I think he believed he was being used in the long game to turn Anakin.

But basically, Dooku was sure that even taking on both Anakin and Obi-Wan was a total mismatch in his favor, and that he could toy with them, kill Obi-Wan along the way, and then eventually take a dive. The duel goes through him going from supremely arrogant to a moment of "uhh that was a close call" to "oh ****, I'm in serious trouble" as he comes to understand that he may not be able to keep up with Anakin heads-up. He begins to realize before he has fully lost the duel that Palpatine set this trap for him, not for the Jedi.

The "kill him" line happens in the book while the two are still dueling and not when Dooku is kneeling in front of the crossed light sabers. That line spooks the **** out of Dooku, and that's when he comes around to the belief that Palpatine was playing him.

He explicitly pitches this to Savage Oppress during Clone Wars, and I took it on level one that it was indeed his plan.

So glad you’re reading the ROTS novel. Those inner thoughts during fights are particularly illuminating.

The only weird thing in the book is Dooku’s rather jarring xenophobia, which isn’t referenced in any other SW material.

He also pitches to Obi-Wan in Attack of the Clones. Being a Sith is kinda like the Groucho Marx line that he would never be a member of a club that would have someone like him as a member. You're master kinda thinks you're probably useless as a Sith if you're goal isn't to eventually overthrow and kill your master.

Yeah, in ROTS he wants to try again to recruit Obi-Wan and unsuccessfully entreaties Palpatine to change the plan to do so. He respects Obi-Wan while he sees Anakin as an immature child. But Palpatine can't be swayed, and Dooku ultimately respects him enough to decide that he knows best.

I do always appreciate it when characters in positions of power like that take a cool and disconnected enough approach to objectively judge a plot on its merits even when the plot is a mutiny against themselves. I always love that Michael Corleone's reaction to finding out that Tessio is plotting against him is not to take umbrage at the disloyalty, but to compliment Tessio for making the smart decision. Michael repeats this later in the trilogy in Part III when he responds to Joey Zasa's failed assassination attempt with, "I respect what he's done. The new overthrows the old. It's natural." Granted that it's easier to extend this sort of grace when you've already managed to obtain the upper hand, but it felt true to his character that in most cases he was able to master his emotions well enough to mostly run his family with cold and calculating decisions.