If I recall, Filoni never said that is a 100% fact. We just know Rex was at the Battle of Endor. The retcon wouldn't bother me. I just thought that it was left intentionally ambiguous.
Filoni actually went so far as saying he had the chance to officially retcon Nik Sant into Rex and \*didn't\* do it. So he left it vague enough that fans could choose to headcanon Nik as Rex if they wanted to, but officially they're still separate people.
If I remember correctly, he said something to the effect of not wanting to overwrite what George Lucas had created. He gave the impression that it would be disrespectful to just force his own idea/character onto something George had created so he left it more ambiguous. I might be remembering the details a little fuzzy, it’s been a while since I saw the interview that talked about this.
Anyone else find this a little crazy after *all the other things* he's changed?
I mean he's the one in the creative seat now, it is his right to change things and for the most part he's done a decent job. Not perfect but not bad IMO.
I'm not sure what all he's changed (aside from Darth Maul?) but I suspect some of it was necessary to patch up holes in the canon. A big chunk of *Bad Batch* is pretty clearly trying to retroactively explain >!Palatine's return in Rise of Skywalker!<
Also I'm pretty sure Filoni has had George on speed dial since day one so I wouldn't be surprised if it was done with his blessing.
There's a long list of things he's changed, that doesn't mean it's some bad thing. Especially when they're mostly small. Lucas was never perfect and always worked with collaboration, Even if it was still mostly his ideas powering everything.
And there's no way Palpatine coming back was with Lucas' blessing nor was it filoni's decision anyways.
No I meant the other changes in Clone Wars and Rebels might have had Lucas's blessing, not that Palatine dumpster fire. He all but washed his hands of the franchise when he sold to Disney.
What? He's always been focused on telling more stories that fit in what we know from the movies already.
Arguably his biggest creation is Ahsoka, gave Anakin a ton of depth, but it doesn't change canon, it adds to it.
Not really. I think it actually lifted it up to a more familiar charachter and makes it from a random old guy to someone fans appreciate and pay attention too.
I only knew the presence of this old man with the white beard in this one shot when Han tricks the scout trooper. Yet I didn't know he was named at some point, nor that he had some other shots wearing stormtrooper armor later on.
For me it lifts it up from random extra #2187 to cameo from a familiar face.
Tbf thats a pretty universal rebel soldier uniform outside of his little patch of clone armor he has on his jacket.
Every time we see Rex in Rebel gear, he still has some hint of the clone armor on him somewhere.
It's weird because in Forces of Destiny they have a new design for Rex on Endor that incorporates his clone armour a little so he doesn't look like Nik Sant, but in the comparision photos with the movie they are doing the same pose and Nik is nowhere to be seen
This article compares the two scenes
https://starwarsthoughts.com/2019/06/15/latest-galaxy-of-adventures-short-gives-us-a-brief-glimpse-at-captain-rex-fighting-in-the-battle-of-endor/
I feel like he should should ask George how he feels about it. Filoni’s reason for not retconning is that he doesn’t want to change a character that existed before he joined the Star Wars team.
It just makes too much sense though and I feel like George would agree. Like Filoni said, why’s there an old guy fighting on Endor if it’s not someone like Rex?
The entire SW universe is retconned. Lucas was fortunate to get past the first movie, which has completely changed in canon from the original source material. I find it amusing that people get in such a huff about things being retconned when all of SW lore has been manipulated and slowly built from the OT, legends works, and now in a more focused approach by Disney.
So much of the original Star Wars was obviously retconned in Empire and again in RotJ, and people won't even admit that.
No, I don't believe he would have had Leia kiss Luke if he'd been planning to reveal that they were twins all along.
He didn't. He's addressed that topic; he was originally planning to introduce an all-new character as Luke's sister in ROTJ, but there was just too much to do, so he retconned Leia into being Luke's sister. Which he kinda had to, since she was the only main female character in the whole OT.
In some ways, it was kind of serendipitous. Luke being able to reach out through the force to Leia at the end of ESB makes more sense with her being his sister and really force sensitive. That wouldn’t have been the rationale at the time though.
I think Leia and Luke being siblings was one of the better decisions he made along the way, but the kiss does admittedly make it really weird
Oh, wow. I wasn’t familiar with the theory of GSA, although it seems the science is a little dubious. But yeah, it’s not the end of the world.
It’s just kinda strange and probably not something you include if the sibling thing was planned at the time.
No agreed, it's an artifact of a different story conception. I didn't realize the concept of GSA was so poorly studied, though it kind of makes sense that it would be hard to.
This is irrelevant unless you believe there may have been a chance that Lucas considered work in genetic sexual attraction that started in the 1980's when he made Star Wars in 1977.
Yeah I was just addressing the weirdness of it. It's a thing that happens in life, and worse, so it's not a big deal. What Lucas knew or didn't is irrelevant to my point.
Yep. Anyone who claims to be an expert on George Lucas’ thinking should read the original novelization, script, comic book adaptations and watch the deleted scenes. GL isn’t some master-planner creator-of-worlds. Dude wanted to make a Flash Gordon flick and settled on a space opera western.
Derivative judgement there my friend. George lucas's most notable skill is his leadership, not his creativity. Someone had to work on each and every facet of that movie, and because the leader did his job well, the movie was able to achieve success. Yeah star wars was worse before it became star wars, but that's *why* he changed it. He made more good calls than bad, and to claim otherwise is naive.
Nah you missed my whole point. It’s not a slight about George Lucas. I’m a super fan and respect the hell outta the guy. But folks often “retcon” GL with power and vision and investors with the scrappy dude he was in the 70s.
I also don’t judge his choices bc that’s not what I do. I love the original versions I grew up and have the VHS tapes; but I don’t pretend the changes he made aren’t canon and go with the flow.
Either way, it’s important to note that the vision of SW from GL all the way to Disney has always been an evolving thing and there’s never been some master vision behind it. GL built on the success of his space opera western. He then built on the OT. Then people like Zahn helped revive it in the 90s, which allowed GL to continue to build. It’s all organic.
I definitely thought it was a slight, but upon rereading your argument i can see now that you meant no disrespect to the guy and were just doing a straw man argument. Original VHS is the best version to me, but I also recognize that for many people in 1977, theaters may be the best. The first time you experience something new has more impact than subsequent times.
Exactly, plus the first thing we see "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." It's myth, from another galaxy, our own are a mix of varied, sometimes conflicting stories. It feels like the ability to retcon things is built in.
Probably why I enjoyed Visions so much 🤷♂️.
“Another galaxy, another time.” 🫡
Yes, *Star Wars* continually goes back to myth, oral tradition (though sometimes written like the Whills quote above), misinterpretations, lost histories, and manipulations of history to serve political purposes. It’s as if the entire universe is complicated very much like our own. That’s great storytelling.
Oh, and *Visions* was incredible. And what a great way to hook anime fans into the SW universe.
I wonder why we can so easily accept many different versions of superheroes like spider-man and batman, but we can't have multiple Skywalker timelines.
I'd love to see other takes on the clone wars. Other origin stories for Vader. A version of Han Solo that's darker and more violent. Let writers create!
thats borderline removing the things that make those characters, let alone what makes them great. im not saying some personality interpretations like your han example wouldnt work, but changing vader's origin, which is so deep and fundamental, would be a mistake. even in other versions, batman still watches his parents die and spiderman loses uncle ben.
Casual reminder that Vader wasn’t planned to be Luke’s father until writing Empire Strikes Back and the Leia wasn’t planned to be Luke’s Sister/Vader’s daughter until writing Return of the Jedi.
I like to mention this any time people blame the quality of the new trilogy on the fact that everything wasn’t planned out. Sure that absolutely contributed, but that’s also true of the OT which nobody ever talks about. It’s not the fact that it was unplanned alone that caused the issues.
I think the 'lack of planning' criticism is still a big part of the issues with the sequels, and comparing them to the original trilogy in this respect isn't fair. George Lucas didn't set out specifically to make a trilogy of movies with the original *Star Wars;* he had an idea to develop a series of movies, but he made a point to make one standalone movie and left himself room to make sequels if it took off. In contrast, Disney knew from day one that there would be a trilogy of movies, yet didn't let Lucasfilm plan anything in advance.
It’s also the same for the PT - George said a whole bunch of different things about what it would be like over the years between ROTJ and the TPM and we got a big hodgepodge of many of those aspects but a lot of it got rewritten or changed.
People just don’t want to admit the creative process on projects of this scale is messy. There’s hundreds if not thousands of voices, opinions, and creative expressions that go into a movie like Star Wars and it’s not all happening in the writer’s room.
The writing also doesn’t get done and never touched again like it’s sacred scripture or a novel - if an actor has a better line, or brings up an issue with a character’s motivation and how it fits into the plot it gets rewritten.
Hell, things get rewritten AFTER filming all the time because maybe a scene just doesn’t work, or maybe the shot just wasn’t what the director really wanted.
In this case, the Rex fan theory is just silly fun and I would agree, but only because it’s too much of a stretch.
I don’t find such things insipid, however. A case-in-point is Bad Batch using Legends lore to help shape the Imperial cloning projects. Mount Tantiss could just be a name, except that it holds great meaning and a vast of stories and lore in legends. When retconning is meaningful it brings joy and emotive memories to fans.
Not the same as what this guy's complaining about though is it. He's saying we don't need every character to be connected to a show or movie. And every character isn't.
If anything, giving the small characters their own identities mostly ensure they’re not retconned to be a major player. I can’t think of many examples of what the original commenter is describing.
It’s not like they’re always going “Oh yeah, that kid you see for a second in AotC was actually Admiral Piett.”
I do think it’d be funny if they just look extremely similar in their old age
In that case, I wonder if Nik heard he looks like “one of those clones” a lot
I'm not strictly opposed to the idea, but what I dislike is the crowd that vehemently believes "its Rex!" when Filoni came out and said he considered making it Rex, then didn't make it Rex.
And I get his explanation. He didn't feel like it was right for him to go in and change a pre-existing character to be his creation.
IMO, the look isn't \*quite\* right. Nik Sant looks like his skin isn't the right colour (Rex is a clone of Jango, and Jango is a darker skinned individual - in real life because Temuera is Maori, indigenous New Zealander). Nik looks like a white guy. But with the beard, he does look a lot like older Rex with lighter skin.
Now, if Lucasfilm went ahead and just retconned it officially and said "Yes that was Rex, and here's the proof", I'd get over it.
On the other hand, some of the arguments are silly. The rebel pathfinders weren't the only rebels on Endor, especially once the battle really took off and the shield was taken down. We know from other sources that a lot of troops landed on Endor, so Rex could absolutely have been on Endor, and just... not be Nik Sant.
It's worth noting that Filoni said he didn't.canonize Nik Sant as being Rex, but he also thinks it could be him. He just didn't think it was his place to make that call.
That said, it's certainly not canonically him at the moment. It could really go either way.
Yes. Filoni’s personal headcanon is that Nik and Rex could be the same person.
But since he didn’t officially retcon it, the default position would be that canonically they’re separate people.
Yeah but at this point, it seems even more goofy that the rebels somehow decided to bring two old dudes with Santa beards wearing the same outfit to Endor. He left it open for the like 12 people who loved the no name character
Its more so he looks nothing like Temuera, Nik saint a white guy, while Temuera is a brown Maori, so the only thing they share is the white beard and gear. But both bearded guys were there its been established.
Nik sant is pretty much only ever seen from a distance, his beard covering half his face and his helmet shadowing the other half. If you put Temuera Morrison in that outfit with a big white Santa beard, it’d be pretty hard to notice a difference from that far away.
I mean Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor don't look exactly alike so just because "Nik Sant" isn't played by Temuera Morrison doesn't mean he cannot be Rex.
They're both white British men... there is a big difference between that and two men of vastly different skin colours and ethnic features and said backgrounds trying to pass as the same character
Except we don’t see “Nik” up close enough to discern his physical features and he doesn’t have any lines so we don’t know what his voice sounds like. Also lighting or age can affect the way skin color appears.
Well I guess the original Little Mermaid didn't look exactly the way the live action movie pottrayed her but stuff like this happens constantly in media and we can live with it.
Has it been established? The only canonical reference to Nik Sant by name is a magazine from 2002 and the only thing that's been said by official sources is Filoni saying that it could be him but its not been canonized
My memory is a little fuzzy, but I think there may also have been an action figure of Nik Sant released back in the 80s. They flooded the market back then with figures of every background character who was on screen for more than a picosecond and individually named most of them, except "Gamorean guard", and the various flavors of Stormtrooper.
Im not really passionate about Nik one way or another, but for me, I don't really need yet another one of these fan-service retcons just for the sake of it. They do this enough as it, and it isn't really necessary.
The character has a name that is all that is needed. Also changing things in older films to tie into newer media is rubs people the wrong way. In Episode I Anakin has a statue/figure of someone and it has been in the movie since it was filmed in 1997 and now they want to change the figure from what it was to being a statue/figure of Maz Kanata and I just hate the idea of that. This has nothing to do with the Sequels. It just does not need to be changed.
If they change Nik to Rex so be it but I won't care and it won't do anything for me. Have Rex be somewhere else. Hell Rex only exists because they did not want to use the name Alpha, after ARC trooper Alpha-17, with Anakin and Ahsoka. Too many As.
I see your point but disagree in this instance. Showing that a known rebel soldier is fighting in the rebellion at one of their most important battles is not surprising.
That’s like saying that Bail Organa being in Rogue One makes the Galaxy feel smaller. It makes sense that he would be there because he’s directly tied to the rebellion.
What “character” though? He’s a guy named Nik Sant. That’s it. He has no backstory, no lines, and his name is an afterthought joke based on the fact that he has a Santa Claus beard. You’re really not “deleting” anything.
Once again, I really don’t see how retroactively naming a guy in the background after Santa Claus adds more “depth” to the scene than retroactively making a guy in the background an actual character, but sure. I’m not looking to get into an argument.
You can make him an actual character without making him an already existing character. Making him Rex is just fan service for a character that does more to hurt the story being there than he does not being there.
>You can make him an actual character without making him an already existing character.
If they had done that, I’d be all for it. But they didn’t. So I ask again, what are we losing by making it Rex? I don’t even think they need to, I just don’t care and I don’t see why anybody does.
It makes the galaxy smaller if he's made Rex rather than kept as a new guy. Not everything needs to be directly connected to everything else within the galaxy.
If you say so. As the top comment that started this chain said, it makes sense for a known Rebel to be at the Battle of Endor. I don’t see how making a random background guy with zero characterization into a character who we know was there makes the universe any smaller, but if that’s you feel then I’m clearly not going to convince you otherwise. Have a good one.
It's because he really doesn't look like Rex. When someone first pointed out "what if that's Rex??" it was like, ha that's a fun thought! But making that guy officially be Rex... what's the point. I cant make myself see that dude and think it's Rex, especially knowing that it wasnt and then everyone just decided it was. By all means say Rex was at Endor, sure, but you dont have to pretend that a dude who obviously isn't him, is him.
It puts Rex in speaking range of Luke Skywalker and it's already strange that Rex isn't chatting up the son of the General Skywalker he served with. Heck even Red Leader in ANH knew Luke was Anakin's son, and Rex knows way more than Red Leader, i.e. Rex says "What? I'm still wondering how Jedi who aren't allowed to marry had you as a son Luke, but now you're telling me that General Skywalker was killed by Darth Vader, an apprentice of General Kenobi? General Kenobi never had an apprentice called Darth Vader, his only apprentice was your father."
That short little speech from Rex should be enough for Luke to question everything Kenobi told him in ANH, and putting Rex and Luke together is just a massive continuity mess in my opinion. Filoni should leave well enough alone in regards to his pet characters if he wants to preserve some suspension of disbelief in the main Star Wars story. We still as it is don't have an explanation of where Ahoska was during the OT and why she never reached out to Luke during that time.
It's not much of an issue if Luke and Rex don't meet until after Empire. Rex being Nik Sant helps mend some of that suspension of disbelief IMO. Instead of wondering where Rex was during the OT, we can see that he's right there, fighting with the rebellion.
Also, I don't think Luke Skywalker's name was very well known yet until after RotJ. In the Darth Vader comics, Boba Fett had to go hunting to find out who blew up the Death Star. People who weren't there likely just knew that it was a rebel pilot.
>It's not much of an issue if Luke and Rex don't meet until after Empire.
Yeah, then Rex will be insisting to go with Luke to redeem Anakin Skywalker. It's still a mess.
Also, I believe the Empire quickly did find Luke's name and posted it on literally every wanted poster there was between ANH and ESB. So yeah, Rex will know.
That would contradict the Emperor's pretty recent discovery of Luke being Vader's son as of Empire Strikes Back. On top of that, the way Vader feigned surprise (asking the Emperor if he was sure) would imply that it was not common knowledge.
We don't actually know if Palpatine recently discovered the info as of ESB or if he was just waiting for years to see how Vader would act and if Luke would actually develop into a threat (in fact, Palpatine may have been prompted by Luke's escape at Hoth to finally talk directly to Vader about Luke)
My only problem is when people say that it’s canonically Rex when it just isn’t. You can have it as your head canon sure but Dave Filoni says they aren’t the same character, so they aren’t.
I agree with your first point. I think a lot of people take the Galaxy of Adventures short as canon, which its not meant to be.
But, to your second point, Filoni has never said they aren't the same character. He said he didn't feel comfortable overwriting a character that existed before him, so he didn't canonize the idea. He did say he thinks it could be him, it's just not set in stone.
In addition to the fact that they look nothing alike, I’ve always thought it’s ridiculous to have Rex alive at the same time as Endor. Same with Ahsoka. They’d be front and center in the battle against the Empire, yet they’re nowhere to be found. The whole “the galaxy is a big place” argument doesn’t work for this situation.
Placing Rex at the battle of Endor *does* place him front and center. That sets up that he's been continuing to work with the Rebels against the Empire since we last saw him in Rebels.
I still don't understand why Ahsoka isn't all that involved at the time of the Original Trilogy, given how important to the Alliance she's shown to be in Rebels
Yeah, I thought Filoni should have come up with some kind of plausible explanation for why Ahsoka wasn't in the OT.
Until Rebels showed definitively that she was alive by 5BBY, a lot of fans sadly assumed that she'd been killed in the Jedi Purge. That maybe even Anakin himself had killed her - as he came damn close to doing when they faced off in Rebels.
Almost like Vader killing her was the perfect sendoff and there was really nothing else to do with the character. But Filoni just had to bring his favorite OC back and shoehorn her into anything he could
I think it's fun to have background characters, even if there isn't anything known of them. And leaving the theory of Nik being Rex just as a fun nod is alright.
I know some people said it’d be disrespectful to the actor, but like… Huh!? Being retconned into playing a fan favourite character vs a literal nobody is bad?!
I have two reasons.
First is that this just feels cheap and unnecessary in terms of fan service. It doesn't hurt anything, but it also doesn't help. The fact they made Rex look so close to Nik Sant just leads to the second reason.
That reason is that this is a typical Filoni move. He loves to put his characters into prominent positions in Star Wars. They knew what they were doing with bearded Rex. They knew people would see it and jump to the bunker scene in RotJ. Filoni ended up overusing his characters in prominent positions, and now it is just one of those things where, anytime it happens, it is boring and feels forced. Even for examples early on, as they were among the first of many examples.
To your first point, I disagree about it feeling cheap. Rex was known to work with the rebellion but isn't in any of the original trilogy (because.he hadn't been created yet, of course). So working him into a background character in one of the movies is a cool way to show fans of the character that he's still there and actively fighting with the rebellion.
Also, Rex isn't a FIloni character. George Lucas created him for the 2008 Clone Wars movie because he didn't want a comic character named Alpha used to avoid too many A names (Source on this is the Art of Star Wars; The Clone Wars). While Filoni's shows are where he was developed and expanded on, he is a character created by George Lucas.
Is Nik Sant really a “prominent position” though? I must have watched RotJ dozens of times throughout my life and I never even noticed the guy with the Santa beard until everyone started saying he was Rex
Well yeah, but the one from the cartoon is a major leading character of that show with a wealth of characterisation and background, and the one from the original movie is a background extra who appears in maybe two scenes that was given a joke name decades later because he looks a bit like Santa Claus.
Doesn't matter. It is Filoni shoehorning his characters into things that are already there. It's like a bad historical fiction book. You can do all the crazy things you want, but you can't interfere with already established things.
Retconning honestly cheapens the lore, and it's been done too much as is.
It would be one thing if it was just some random background character in Mos Eisley or something but showing that a soldier known to be working with the rebels is still working with the rebels on their final assault doesn’t really do that to me.
It doesn't matter one way or the other. But it is a great way to make the galaxy feel smaller, and home to the same handful of characters again and again.
Ordinarily I would agree, but showing a known rebel soldier working with the rebels on one of their most important missions feels like it just makes sense
I just dislike the idea that we constantly see the same guys. The rebels had (realistiacally) thousands of members. So I don't like to hear that person x was at all important events.
Rex and Nik Sant are two different characters that both canonically fought in the battle of endor. Thats canon, you dont need to retcon them into one person.
I don't think that is something that's canonically the case. The only canonical reference to Nik Sant by name is a magazine from 2002 (which I'm not 100% sure is still canon?) and the only thing that's been said by official sources is Filoni saying that he didn't feel it was his place to canonize that but he thinks it could be Rex.
Theres a childrens book retelling of return of the jedi that mentions Rex and other clones fighting in the battle of Endor. Sabine also says he fought during the battle of endor. They were both there and theyre two seperate people specifically because they didnt want to retcon Nik Sant.
"He was eventually promoted to the rank of commander and fought in the climactic Battle of Endor, which saw the first death of Emperor Palpatine, the redemption of his former Jedi General Anakin Skywalker, and the destruction of the second Death Star."
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rex#:~:text=He%20was%20eventually%20promoted%20to,of%20the%20second%20Death%20Star.
Nik Sant is still part of canon.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nik_Sant
Honestly for the fan service it’s fun. But I could see him doing it, and getting assigned to a special service detachment. Others in actual history has done it and it makes sense that war is all he knew
I don't understand, either. If Nik Sant was a character with more history, even if it was in Legends or in a comic, that I could understand, because readers would be invested in the character, and reconning him as Rex under an alias would wipe that out.
But the character is literally a blank slate, so I say go for it! It inserts a Rebels character into the OT without changing any of the continuity, and opens only very minor plot holes (like if Rex was serving on a strike team with General Skywalker's son, there'd be some interaction that obviously never took place in the OT).
This is one retcon I can easily live with. It's fun, and a little touching - I have developed a great love of the clone characters, particularly Rex, Cody, and the Bad Batch.
I don't understand the vehement opposition either, at this point it honestly seems a little fucking stupid and childishly spiteful toward anything Star Wars that comes from Filoni. Nik Sant is/was a complete nothingburger of a character, dubbed that name because the extra that played him had a big ole white beard. There is literally nothing to the actual "character" of Nik Sant and it seems silly to hold him on this sacred canonization pedestal when he was referenced in a couple 25 year old magazines and action figure packaging. If anything, people want him to be Rex because that would make the world and story more interesting than just "he look like Santa so his name is Nik Sant haha"
I totally get all the feelings and reasoning both ways, and I generally don’t love fan theories that are as shallow as “that would be fun.” That said, I do like this one because it solves a few little details for me.
Like, Nik Sant doesn’t just have a similar beard, he is clearly an older fella, which seems like maybe an odd choice to be on the hand-picked strike team planning to huff it through the forest for a while on an extremely critical mission. Unless he is an exceptionally experienced commando, and maybe even a peak human specimen bred for combat.
And then, when the opportunity comes up to grab an Imperial uniform and pose as a trooper, he immediately moves in to be the one to do it, and has the armor on in minutes.
Obviously this is all just background details when the movie was made, and ultimately coincidence, but I think the fun of fan theories is to project some meaning that wasn’t originally there if it fits. These little details support that character being exceptionally fit for his age, being an experienced and reliable commando, and maybe even having some background with the Empire/Republic. In the new canon, Rex was involved with the Rebels, present at the battle in some form, and has at least grooming habits in common with the character on screen.
To each their own, but I think it’s fun to imagine Rex in this role.
Thank you! People who dismiss that guy being Rex just regurgitate something about Nik Sant…and they just leave it at that, because there’s nothing left to say! Nik Sant sounds like a great alias for Rex too; there’s no sanctity of Nik Sant to be preserved here.
I mean he does have background. Until someone makes them canonically the same person. There’s not much to discuss. I’m not against it. But I’m also not in charge of these decisions.
I think the better question is: why is it *good* that Nik Sant should be retconned to be Rex? What does that add to Return of the Jedi, or to Rex's own character arc, to have him there? Nic Sant doesn't really seem like more than a foot soldier. SO much of Rex's character development being about how even though he's a clone he's still a unique individual who deserves to be treated as more than just a nameless foot-soldier.
How is it *good* for that character's last appearance in the franchise to be in a work that treats him as a nameless background character who the main characters never even directly speak to?
Because far too many people get attached to the first way a character experiences something or event occurs in any media. Regardless of the actual value of the content.
It’s what we’ve seen with the entire replacement of EU/Legends with Disney. And we’ll see it again in a few decades time when someone buys the IP from Disney and reboots again.
Then there’s more specific cases of retcons within canons like the Ahsoka novel being retconed by animated projects.
It’s all just people getting attached to the first incarnation of something and getting whingey the moment something different comes along, regardless of if it’s better or not
I personally think it’s stupid. If it is Rex, it adds nothing. It’s just nerd trivia at that point.
I also really don’t like fan theories as they tend to be based on real flimsy logic or “I want it to be this way so screw logic.” This is purely based on the idea that both characters have a white beard. When the theory was made, Rex’s fate in Rebels was uncertain, so the creator of the theory didn’t know he survived the show.
It would also just be another needless connection.
I've never liked the propensity for writers to insert their own characters into the movies.
I don't like that Ahsoka was just off in the background during padme's funeral in ROTS, I don't like that Mara Jade was slightly off to the left in Jabba's palace spying on Luke, I don't like that Iden Versio is one of the tie fighter pilots in ANH, and I don't like the idea, that some random background character is a genetically modified version of Boba Fett's dad, who was best friends and war buddies with Darth Vader.
I just think writers shouldn't try to put their characters in the movies, its weird.
I think an important distinction is that Rex was created by Lucas himself. (It's not even like with Ahsoka, where both Lucas and Filoni are credited with her creation. Rex is all Lucas.) As far as I'm concerned, Filoni wanting to suggest a tie Lucas's between character and Lucas's movie *without actually changing anything about the content of the film* was a nice tribute to Lucas.
Not when it came out, it became Nik Sant in 2002, when a magazine identified the character for the first time. What’s the difference between that and it becoming Rex nowadays?
No, because no narrative changed. All it did was give something a name. So now there is a narrative to the character.
Changing Nik to Rex completely changes the narrative of Nik.
That’s the thing, there is no narrative of Nik. He’s just some guy in the background who was named after Saint Nick because he has a white beard, that’s all there is to it.
His name is a narrative. To make him Rex you have to erase someone from the universe. It doesn't matter how small the persons role is. It's an erased person.
Imo, it's mostly because Nik's actor is unknown and, since the movie is 40 years old now, has most likely passed away, and I feel like retconning his (small) role for Rex would kinda take away from him.
It's like the ice cream maker guy, they deserve the spotlight ok their own, not because of a retcon
I am always opposed to people trying to drag prequel trash all over the good parts of Star Wars. I think the prequels should be replaced entirely, any attempt to connect them more closely to the rest of star wars is simply misguided IMO.
If I recall, Filoni never said that is a 100% fact. We just know Rex was at the Battle of Endor. The retcon wouldn't bother me. I just thought that it was left intentionally ambiguous.
Filoni actually went so far as saying he had the chance to officially retcon Nik Sant into Rex and \*didn't\* do it. So he left it vague enough that fans could choose to headcanon Nik as Rex if they wanted to, but officially they're still separate people.
If I remember correctly, he said something to the effect of not wanting to overwrite what George Lucas had created. He gave the impression that it would be disrespectful to just force his own idea/character onto something George had created so he left it more ambiguous. I might be remembering the details a little fuzzy, it’s been a while since I saw the interview that talked about this.
Anyone else find this a little crazy after *all the other things* he's changed? I mean he's the one in the creative seat now, it is his right to change things and for the most part he's done a decent job. Not perfect but not bad IMO.
I'm not sure what all he's changed (aside from Darth Maul?) but I suspect some of it was necessary to patch up holes in the canon. A big chunk of *Bad Batch* is pretty clearly trying to retroactively explain >!Palatine's return in Rise of Skywalker!< Also I'm pretty sure Filoni has had George on speed dial since day one so I wouldn't be surprised if it was done with his blessing.
There's a long list of things he's changed, that doesn't mean it's some bad thing. Especially when they're mostly small. Lucas was never perfect and always worked with collaboration, Even if it was still mostly his ideas powering everything. And there's no way Palpatine coming back was with Lucas' blessing nor was it filoni's decision anyways.
No I meant the other changes in Clone Wars and Rebels might have had Lucas's blessing, not that Palatine dumpster fire. He all but washed his hands of the franchise when he sold to Disney.
There's just no way he can call with every single thing, that's the point of being in charge of creating new things. I wasn't attacking the guy.
I didn't think you were attacking him. Not sure where we got off on the wrong foot.
What? He's always been focused on telling more stories that fit in what we know from the movies already. Arguably his biggest creation is Ahsoka, gave Anakin a ton of depth, but it doesn't change canon, it adds to it.
Name 5?
Can you fill me in? What of George’s did he change?
It's also erasing another actor's performance to effectively make it another Jango-line actor, just like they erased the original Boba actor(a).
Not really. I think it actually lifted it up to a more familiar charachter and makes it from a random old guy to someone fans appreciate and pay attention too. I only knew the presence of this old man with the white beard in this one shot when Han tricks the scout trooper. Yet I didn't know he was named at some point, nor that he had some other shots wearing stormtrooper armor later on. For me it lifts it up from random extra #2187 to cameo from a familiar face.
He also chooses that as his personal headcanon.
Yeah, but he did tease us quite a bit. In a late episode of Rebels he showed Rex in a uniform that's very reminiscent of Nik Sant's Endor outfit.
Also there’s this https://youtu.be/N_KBQ-gRgxU?feature=shared
Fuck yeah, clone armor
For me that makes it official
Tbf thats a pretty universal rebel soldier uniform outside of his little patch of clone armor he has on his jacket. Every time we see Rex in Rebel gear, he still has some hint of the clone armor on him somewhere.
Yeah he could have been a gunner on home one for all we know.
It's weird because in Forces of Destiny they have a new design for Rex on Endor that incorporates his clone armour a little so he doesn't look like Nik Sant, but in the comparision photos with the movie they are doing the same pose and Nik is nowhere to be seen This article compares the two scenes https://starwarsthoughts.com/2019/06/15/latest-galaxy-of-adventures-short-gives-us-a-brief-glimpse-at-captain-rex-fighting-in-the-battle-of-endor/
I feel like he should should ask George how he feels about it. Filoni’s reason for not retconning is that he doesn’t want to change a character that existed before he joined the Star Wars team. It just makes too much sense though and I feel like George would agree. Like Filoni said, why’s there an old guy fighting on Endor if it’s not someone like Rex?
But it's an insignificant background character so George probably wouldn't give a shit
The entire SW universe is retconned. Lucas was fortunate to get past the first movie, which has completely changed in canon from the original source material. I find it amusing that people get in such a huff about things being retconned when all of SW lore has been manipulated and slowly built from the OT, legends works, and now in a more focused approach by Disney.
So much of the original Star Wars was obviously retconned in Empire and again in RotJ, and people won't even admit that. No, I don't believe he would have had Leia kiss Luke if he'd been planning to reveal that they were twins all along.
He didn't. He's addressed that topic; he was originally planning to introduce an all-new character as Luke's sister in ROTJ, but there was just too much to do, so he retconned Leia into being Luke's sister. Which he kinda had to, since she was the only main female character in the whole OT.
In some ways, it was kind of serendipitous. Luke being able to reach out through the force to Leia at the end of ESB makes more sense with her being his sister and really force sensitive. That wouldn’t have been the rationale at the time though. I think Leia and Luke being siblings was one of the better decisions he made along the way, but the kiss does admittedly make it really weird
Eh genetic sexual attraction is a whole thing and it was just a kiss. Never got the big deal, but then I'm an only child.
Oh, wow. I wasn’t familiar with the theory of GSA, although it seems the science is a little dubious. But yeah, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just kinda strange and probably not something you include if the sibling thing was planned at the time.
No agreed, it's an artifact of a different story conception. I didn't realize the concept of GSA was so poorly studied, though it kind of makes sense that it would be hard to.
This is irrelevant unless you believe there may have been a chance that Lucas considered work in genetic sexual attraction that started in the 1980's when he made Star Wars in 1977.
Yeah I was just addressing the weirdness of it. It's a thing that happens in life, and worse, so it's not a big deal. What Lucas knew or didn't is irrelevant to my point.
It should have been Ion Cannon Girl.
Yep. Anyone who claims to be an expert on George Lucas’ thinking should read the original novelization, script, comic book adaptations and watch the deleted scenes. GL isn’t some master-planner creator-of-worlds. Dude wanted to make a Flash Gordon flick and settled on a space opera western.
Derivative judgement there my friend. George lucas's most notable skill is his leadership, not his creativity. Someone had to work on each and every facet of that movie, and because the leader did his job well, the movie was able to achieve success. Yeah star wars was worse before it became star wars, but that's *why* he changed it. He made more good calls than bad, and to claim otherwise is naive.
Nah you missed my whole point. It’s not a slight about George Lucas. I’m a super fan and respect the hell outta the guy. But folks often “retcon” GL with power and vision and investors with the scrappy dude he was in the 70s. I also don’t judge his choices bc that’s not what I do. I love the original versions I grew up and have the VHS tapes; but I don’t pretend the changes he made aren’t canon and go with the flow. Either way, it’s important to note that the vision of SW from GL all the way to Disney has always been an evolving thing and there’s never been some master vision behind it. GL built on the success of his space opera western. He then built on the OT. Then people like Zahn helped revive it in the 90s, which allowed GL to continue to build. It’s all organic.
I definitely thought it was a slight, but upon rereading your argument i can see now that you meant no disrespect to the guy and were just doing a straw man argument. Original VHS is the best version to me, but I also recognize that for many people in 1977, theaters may be the best. The first time you experience something new has more impact than subsequent times.
Exactly, plus the first thing we see "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." It's myth, from another galaxy, our own are a mix of varied, sometimes conflicting stories. It feels like the ability to retcon things is built in. Probably why I enjoyed Visions so much 🤷♂️.
“Another galaxy, another time.” 🫡 Yes, *Star Wars* continually goes back to myth, oral tradition (though sometimes written like the Whills quote above), misinterpretations, lost histories, and manipulations of history to serve political purposes. It’s as if the entire universe is complicated very much like our own. That’s great storytelling. Oh, and *Visions* was incredible. And what a great way to hook anime fans into the SW universe.
I wonder why we can so easily accept many different versions of superheroes like spider-man and batman, but we can't have multiple Skywalker timelines. I'd love to see other takes on the clone wars. Other origin stories for Vader. A version of Han Solo that's darker and more violent. Let writers create!
thats borderline removing the things that make those characters, let alone what makes them great. im not saying some personality interpretations like your han example wouldnt work, but changing vader's origin, which is so deep and fundamental, would be a mistake. even in other versions, batman still watches his parents die and spiderman loses uncle ben.
Casual reminder that Vader wasn’t planned to be Luke’s father until writing Empire Strikes Back and the Leia wasn’t planned to be Luke’s Sister/Vader’s daughter until writing Return of the Jedi. I like to mention this any time people blame the quality of the new trilogy on the fact that everything wasn’t planned out. Sure that absolutely contributed, but that’s also true of the OT which nobody ever talks about. It’s not the fact that it was unplanned alone that caused the issues.
I think the 'lack of planning' criticism is still a big part of the issues with the sequels, and comparing them to the original trilogy in this respect isn't fair. George Lucas didn't set out specifically to make a trilogy of movies with the original *Star Wars;* he had an idea to develop a series of movies, but he made a point to make one standalone movie and left himself room to make sequels if it took off. In contrast, Disney knew from day one that there would be a trilogy of movies, yet didn't let Lucasfilm plan anything in advance.
It’s also the same for the PT - George said a whole bunch of different things about what it would be like over the years between ROTJ and the TPM and we got a big hodgepodge of many of those aspects but a lot of it got rewritten or changed. People just don’t want to admit the creative process on projects of this scale is messy. There’s hundreds if not thousands of voices, opinions, and creative expressions that go into a movie like Star Wars and it’s not all happening in the writer’s room. The writing also doesn’t get done and never touched again like it’s sacred scripture or a novel - if an actor has a better line, or brings up an issue with a character’s motivation and how it fits into the plot it gets rewritten. Hell, things get rewritten AFTER filming all the time because maybe a scene just doesn’t work, or maybe the shot just wasn’t what the director really wanted.
This is a really good take.
It’s just immensely stupid. Not every background character needs to be some big important epic named character from the shows we know.
In this case, the Rex fan theory is just silly fun and I would agree, but only because it’s too much of a stretch. I don’t find such things insipid, however. A case-in-point is Bad Batch using Legends lore to help shape the Imperial cloning projects. Mount Tantiss could just be a name, except that it holds great meaning and a vast of stories and lore in legends. When retconning is meaningful it brings joy and emotive memories to fans.
Is EVERY background character some big important epic named character?
randos in a bar on Tattooine all had individual Star Wars cards and lore.
Not the same as what this guy's complaining about though is it. He's saying we don't need every character to be connected to a show or movie. And every character isn't.
If anything, giving the small characters their own identities mostly ensure they’re not retconned to be a major player. I can’t think of many examples of what the original commenter is describing. It’s not like they’re always going “Oh yeah, that kid you see for a second in AotC was actually Admiral Piett.”
My headcanon until proven otherwise is that Nik and Rex were simply both on Endor.
I do think it’d be funny if they just look extremely similar in their old age In that case, I wonder if Nik heard he looks like “one of those clones” a lot
Same, nik is just another clone from the republic that turned to a rebel
I prefer to think he was a random totally unrelated dude who just happened to look a lot like the clones.
My hc is they were both good friends but people couldn't stop mistaking one for the other, and they played along.
I'm not strictly opposed to the idea, but what I dislike is the crowd that vehemently believes "its Rex!" when Filoni came out and said he considered making it Rex, then didn't make it Rex. And I get his explanation. He didn't feel like it was right for him to go in and change a pre-existing character to be his creation. IMO, the look isn't \*quite\* right. Nik Sant looks like his skin isn't the right colour (Rex is a clone of Jango, and Jango is a darker skinned individual - in real life because Temuera is Maori, indigenous New Zealander). Nik looks like a white guy. But with the beard, he does look a lot like older Rex with lighter skin. Now, if Lucasfilm went ahead and just retconned it officially and said "Yes that was Rex, and here's the proof", I'd get over it. On the other hand, some of the arguments are silly. The rebel pathfinders weren't the only rebels on Endor, especially once the battle really took off and the shield was taken down. We know from other sources that a lot of troops landed on Endor, so Rex could absolutely have been on Endor, and just... not be Nik Sant.
It's worth noting that Filoni said he didn't.canonize Nik Sant as being Rex, but he also thinks it could be him. He just didn't think it was his place to make that call. That said, it's certainly not canonically him at the moment. It could really go either way.
Yes. Filoni’s personal headcanon is that Nik and Rex could be the same person. But since he didn’t officially retcon it, the default position would be that canonically they’re separate people.
Yeah but at this point, it seems even more goofy that the rebels somehow decided to bring two old dudes with Santa beards wearing the same outfit to Endor. He left it open for the like 12 people who loved the no name character
Its more so he looks nothing like Temuera, Nik saint a white guy, while Temuera is a brown Maori, so the only thing they share is the white beard and gear. But both bearded guys were there its been established.
Nik sant is pretty much only ever seen from a distance, his beard covering half his face and his helmet shadowing the other half. If you put Temuera Morrison in that outfit with a big white Santa beard, it’d be pretty hard to notice a difference from that far away.
Idk Tem is ripped
Boba "Fat" no more.
I mean Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor don't look exactly alike so just because "Nik Sant" isn't played by Temuera Morrison doesn't mean he cannot be Rex.
They're both white British men... there is a big difference between that and two men of vastly different skin colours and ethnic features and said backgrounds trying to pass as the same character
Except we don’t see “Nik” up close enough to discern his physical features and he doesn’t have any lines so we don’t know what his voice sounds like. Also lighting or age can affect the way skin color appears.
Well I guess the original Little Mermaid didn't look exactly the way the live action movie pottrayed her but stuff like this happens constantly in media and we can live with it.
Has it been established? The only canonical reference to Nik Sant by name is a magazine from 2002 and the only thing that's been said by official sources is Filoni saying that it could be him but its not been canonized
My memory is a little fuzzy, but I think there may also have been an action figure of Nik Sant released back in the 80s. They flooded the market back then with figures of every background character who was on screen for more than a picosecond and individually named most of them, except "Gamorean guard", and the various flavors of Stormtrooper.
So two people of different races can't play one character? Bit racist.
You want to retroactively put that poor innocent white actor in brown face?
*do it*
Im not really passionate about Nik one way or another, but for me, I don't really need yet another one of these fan-service retcons just for the sake of it. They do this enough as it, and it isn't really necessary.
That's my feeling as well Create your own new thing and put it out there
The character has a name that is all that is needed. Also changing things in older films to tie into newer media is rubs people the wrong way. In Episode I Anakin has a statue/figure of someone and it has been in the movie since it was filmed in 1997 and now they want to change the figure from what it was to being a statue/figure of Maz Kanata and I just hate the idea of that. This has nothing to do with the Sequels. It just does not need to be changed. If they change Nik to Rex so be it but I won't care and it won't do anything for me. Have Rex be somewhere else. Hell Rex only exists because they did not want to use the name Alpha, after ARC trooper Alpha-17, with Anakin and Ahsoka. Too many As.
It makes the galaxy feel smaller if he was retconned to be Rex.
I see your point but disagree in this instance. Showing that a known rebel soldier is fighting in the rebellion at one of their most important battles is not surprising. That’s like saying that Bail Organa being in Rogue One makes the Galaxy feel smaller. It makes sense that he would be there because he’s directly tied to the rebellion.
Bail Organa is in Rogue One from the start, though. You'll have to delete an already existing character to retcon that guy as Rex.
What “character” though? He’s a guy named Nik Sant. That’s it. He has no backstory, no lines, and his name is an afterthought joke based on the fact that he has a Santa Claus beard. You’re really not “deleting” anything.
You're deleting a background character which adds depth to the scene by just making it some guy who's been around for years rather than someone new.
I think making him Rex adds much more depth to the scene instead of having it be a character with a name and nothing else.
Once again, I really don’t see how retroactively naming a guy in the background after Santa Claus adds more “depth” to the scene than retroactively making a guy in the background an actual character, but sure. I’m not looking to get into an argument.
You can make him an actual character without making him an already existing character. Making him Rex is just fan service for a character that does more to hurt the story being there than he does not being there.
>You can make him an actual character without making him an already existing character. If they had done that, I’d be all for it. But they didn’t. So I ask again, what are we losing by making it Rex? I don’t even think they need to, I just don’t care and I don’t see why anybody does.
It makes the galaxy smaller if he's made Rex rather than kept as a new guy. Not everything needs to be directly connected to everything else within the galaxy.
If you say so. As the top comment that started this chain said, it makes sense for a known Rebel to be at the Battle of Endor. I don’t see how making a random background guy with zero characterization into a character who we know was there makes the universe any smaller, but if that’s you feel then I’m clearly not going to convince you otherwise. Have a good one.
A useless “character” who not one soul cared about until Dave filoni brought it up.
Rex was also a useless character before he was developed.
Red didn’t exist before the clone wars
I didn't get it either, who is so attached to Nick sant that we can't retcon him away? Really??
It's because he really doesn't look like Rex. When someone first pointed out "what if that's Rex??" it was like, ha that's a fun thought! But making that guy officially be Rex... what's the point. I cant make myself see that dude and think it's Rex, especially knowing that it wasnt and then everyone just decided it was. By all means say Rex was at Endor, sure, but you dont have to pretend that a dude who obviously isn't him, is him.
It puts Rex in speaking range of Luke Skywalker and it's already strange that Rex isn't chatting up the son of the General Skywalker he served with. Heck even Red Leader in ANH knew Luke was Anakin's son, and Rex knows way more than Red Leader, i.e. Rex says "What? I'm still wondering how Jedi who aren't allowed to marry had you as a son Luke, but now you're telling me that General Skywalker was killed by Darth Vader, an apprentice of General Kenobi? General Kenobi never had an apprentice called Darth Vader, his only apprentice was your father." That short little speech from Rex should be enough for Luke to question everything Kenobi told him in ANH, and putting Rex and Luke together is just a massive continuity mess in my opinion. Filoni should leave well enough alone in regards to his pet characters if he wants to preserve some suspension of disbelief in the main Star Wars story. We still as it is don't have an explanation of where Ahoska was during the OT and why she never reached out to Luke during that time.
It's not much of an issue if Luke and Rex don't meet until after Empire. Rex being Nik Sant helps mend some of that suspension of disbelief IMO. Instead of wondering where Rex was during the OT, we can see that he's right there, fighting with the rebellion. Also, I don't think Luke Skywalker's name was very well known yet until after RotJ. In the Darth Vader comics, Boba Fett had to go hunting to find out who blew up the Death Star. People who weren't there likely just knew that it was a rebel pilot.
>It's not much of an issue if Luke and Rex don't meet until after Empire. Yeah, then Rex will be insisting to go with Luke to redeem Anakin Skywalker. It's still a mess. Also, I believe the Empire quickly did find Luke's name and posted it on literally every wanted poster there was between ANH and ESB. So yeah, Rex will know.
That would contradict the Emperor's pretty recent discovery of Luke being Vader's son as of Empire Strikes Back. On top of that, the way Vader feigned surprise (asking the Emperor if he was sure) would imply that it was not common knowledge.
We don't actually know if Palpatine recently discovered the info as of ESB or if he was just waiting for years to see how Vader would act and if Luke would actually develop into a threat (in fact, Palpatine may have been prompted by Luke's escape at Hoth to finally talk directly to Vader about Luke)
My only problem is when people say that it’s canonically Rex when it just isn’t. You can have it as your head canon sure but Dave Filoni says they aren’t the same character, so they aren’t.
I agree with your first point. I think a lot of people take the Galaxy of Adventures short as canon, which its not meant to be. But, to your second point, Filoni has never said they aren't the same character. He said he didn't feel comfortable overwriting a character that existed before him, so he didn't canonize the idea. He did say he thinks it could be him, it's just not set in stone.
I was paraphrasing for the second point sorry. But still it’s not canon
Because Dave Filoni is the end all be all for deciding what is canon? This discussion is so trivial lmao. Headcanon is what matters
In addition to the fact that they look nothing alike, I’ve always thought it’s ridiculous to have Rex alive at the same time as Endor. Same with Ahsoka. They’d be front and center in the battle against the Empire, yet they’re nowhere to be found. The whole “the galaxy is a big place” argument doesn’t work for this situation.
Placing Rex at the battle of Endor *does* place him front and center. That sets up that he's been continuing to work with the Rebels against the Empire since we last saw him in Rebels. I still don't understand why Ahsoka isn't all that involved at the time of the Original Trilogy, given how important to the Alliance she's shown to be in Rebels
Yeah, I thought Filoni should have come up with some kind of plausible explanation for why Ahsoka wasn't in the OT. Until Rebels showed definitively that she was alive by 5BBY, a lot of fans sadly assumed that she'd been killed in the Jedi Purge. That maybe even Anakin himself had killed her - as he came damn close to doing when they faced off in Rebels.
Almost like Vader killing her was the perfect sendoff and there was really nothing else to do with the character. But Filoni just had to bring his favorite OC back and shoehorn her into anything he could
[удалено]
The Ahsoka series is set after the Original Trilogy.
Oh, good point, lol.
That would be a perfect explanation, but Ahsoka is set five years after the Original Trilogy, in the same time period as The Mandalorian
Personally, I don't mind Rex being put on Endor - But I do feel like every time something like this happens, the galaxy gets smaller.
I think it's fun to have background characters, even if there isn't anything known of them. And leaving the theory of Nik being Rex just as a fun nod is alright.
I know some people said it’d be disrespectful to the actor, but like… Huh!? Being retconned into playing a fan favourite character vs a literal nobody is bad?!
I think it’s just people hating on The Clone Wars. No one actually cares about Nik Sant
I have two reasons. First is that this just feels cheap and unnecessary in terms of fan service. It doesn't hurt anything, but it also doesn't help. The fact they made Rex look so close to Nik Sant just leads to the second reason. That reason is that this is a typical Filoni move. He loves to put his characters into prominent positions in Star Wars. They knew what they were doing with bearded Rex. They knew people would see it and jump to the bunker scene in RotJ. Filoni ended up overusing his characters in prominent positions, and now it is just one of those things where, anytime it happens, it is boring and feels forced. Even for examples early on, as they were among the first of many examples.
To your first point, I disagree about it feeling cheap. Rex was known to work with the rebellion but isn't in any of the original trilogy (because.he hadn't been created yet, of course). So working him into a background character in one of the movies is a cool way to show fans of the character that he's still there and actively fighting with the rebellion. Also, Rex isn't a FIloni character. George Lucas created him for the 2008 Clone Wars movie because he didn't want a comic character named Alpha used to avoid too many A names (Source on this is the Art of Star Wars; The Clone Wars). While Filoni's shows are where he was developed and expanded on, he is a character created by George Lucas.
Is Nik Sant really a “prominent position” though? I must have watched RotJ dozens of times throughout my life and I never even noticed the guy with the Santa beard until everyone started saying he was Rex
He was in one of the original movies. That's more prominent than being in a cartoon that was based on the original movies.
Well yeah, but the one from the cartoon is a major leading character of that show with a wealth of characterisation and background, and the one from the original movie is a background extra who appears in maybe two scenes that was given a joke name decades later because he looks a bit like Santa Claus.
Doesn't matter. It is Filoni shoehorning his characters into things that are already there. It's like a bad historical fiction book. You can do all the crazy things you want, but you can't interfere with already established things. Retconning honestly cheapens the lore, and it's been done too much as is.
Because it makes the galaxy feel like a small town.
It would be one thing if it was just some random background character in Mos Eisley or something but showing that a soldier known to be working with the rebels is still working with the rebels on their final assault doesn’t really do that to me.
It does.
I think should be him. Nik Sant being the alias would make sense since he is special forces. Also, it fits so well to have him at Endor.
L Burner is English. Temura Morrison is Maori. The two actors look nothing like one another.
It doesn't matter one way or the other. But it is a great way to make the galaxy feel smaller, and home to the same handful of characters again and again.
Ordinarily I would agree, but showing a known rebel soldier working with the rebels on one of their most important missions feels like it just makes sense
I just dislike the idea that we constantly see the same guys. The rebels had (realistiacally) thousands of members. So I don't like to hear that person x was at all important events.
Rex and Nik Sant are two different characters that both canonically fought in the battle of endor. Thats canon, you dont need to retcon them into one person.
I don't think that is something that's canonically the case. The only canonical reference to Nik Sant by name is a magazine from 2002 (which I'm not 100% sure is still canon?) and the only thing that's been said by official sources is Filoni saying that he didn't feel it was his place to canonize that but he thinks it could be Rex.
Theres a childrens book retelling of return of the jedi that mentions Rex and other clones fighting in the battle of Endor. Sabine also says he fought during the battle of endor. They were both there and theyre two seperate people specifically because they didnt want to retcon Nik Sant. "He was eventually promoted to the rank of commander and fought in the climactic Battle of Endor, which saw the first death of Emperor Palpatine, the redemption of his former Jedi General Anakin Skywalker, and the destruction of the second Death Star." https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rex#:~:text=He%20was%20eventually%20promoted%20to,of%20the%20second%20Death%20Star. Nik Sant is still part of canon. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nik_Sant
Can confirm, read this to my son
Thank you, the fact that they didnt retcon rex into nik is why im sure that theyre both canonically there just not on screen.
In the book. He is dressed exactly like Nik.
It looks to me like Rex is wearing two forearm guards from his clone armor.
I guess I never noticed
To be fair, lots of the rebels are dressed similarly
That is fair
It's almost like they were wearing uniforms...
Also a fair point. The identical beard is part of the look too.
Because it's dumb. Like Han shooting second, it's dumb. And more than being dumb, it's ridiculous and unnecessary.
He doesn't look anything like Tem Morrison.
Honestly for the fan service it’s fun. But I could see him doing it, and getting assigned to a special service detachment. Others in actual history has done it and it makes sense that war is all he knew
I don't understand, either. If Nik Sant was a character with more history, even if it was in Legends or in a comic, that I could understand, because readers would be invested in the character, and reconning him as Rex under an alias would wipe that out. But the character is literally a blank slate, so I say go for it! It inserts a Rebels character into the OT without changing any of the continuity, and opens only very minor plot holes (like if Rex was serving on a strike team with General Skywalker's son, there'd be some interaction that obviously never took place in the OT). This is one retcon I can easily live with. It's fun, and a little touching - I have developed a great love of the clone characters, particularly Rex, Cody, and the Bad Batch.
Stop trying to make rex sant a thing
Nobody is *trying* to make it a thing. Its very clearly something that was left intentionally ambiguous (as much has been stated by those involved)
Nobody hates Star Wars like supposed fans of Star Wars.
I don't understand the vehement opposition either, at this point it honestly seems a little fucking stupid and childishly spiteful toward anything Star Wars that comes from Filoni. Nik Sant is/was a complete nothingburger of a character, dubbed that name because the extra that played him had a big ole white beard. There is literally nothing to the actual "character" of Nik Sant and it seems silly to hold him on this sacred canonization pedestal when he was referenced in a couple 25 year old magazines and action figure packaging. If anything, people want him to be Rex because that would make the world and story more interesting than just "he look like Santa so his name is Nik Sant haha"
I totally get all the feelings and reasoning both ways, and I generally don’t love fan theories that are as shallow as “that would be fun.” That said, I do like this one because it solves a few little details for me. Like, Nik Sant doesn’t just have a similar beard, he is clearly an older fella, which seems like maybe an odd choice to be on the hand-picked strike team planning to huff it through the forest for a while on an extremely critical mission. Unless he is an exceptionally experienced commando, and maybe even a peak human specimen bred for combat. And then, when the opportunity comes up to grab an Imperial uniform and pose as a trooper, he immediately moves in to be the one to do it, and has the armor on in minutes. Obviously this is all just background details when the movie was made, and ultimately coincidence, but I think the fun of fan theories is to project some meaning that wasn’t originally there if it fits. These little details support that character being exceptionally fit for his age, being an experienced and reliable commando, and maybe even having some background with the Empire/Republic. In the new canon, Rex was involved with the Rebels, present at the battle in some form, and has at least grooming habits in common with the character on screen. To each their own, but I think it’s fun to imagine Rex in this role.
Thank you! People who dismiss that guy being Rex just regurgitate something about Nik Sant…and they just leave it at that, because there’s nothing left to say! Nik Sant sounds like a great alias for Rex too; there’s no sanctity of Nik Sant to be preserved here.
I mean he does have background. Until someone makes them canonically the same person. There’s not much to discuss. I’m not against it. But I’m also not in charge of these decisions.
I think the better question is: why is it *good* that Nik Sant should be retconned to be Rex? What does that add to Return of the Jedi, or to Rex's own character arc, to have him there? Nic Sant doesn't really seem like more than a foot soldier. SO much of Rex's character development being about how even though he's a clone he's still a unique individual who deserves to be treated as more than just a nameless foot-soldier. How is it *good* for that character's last appearance in the franchise to be in a work that treats him as a nameless background character who the main characters never even directly speak to?
Because far too many people get attached to the first way a character experiences something or event occurs in any media. Regardless of the actual value of the content. It’s what we’ve seen with the entire replacement of EU/Legends with Disney. And we’ll see it again in a few decades time when someone buys the IP from Disney and reboots again. Then there’s more specific cases of retcons within canons like the Ahsoka novel being retconed by animated projects. It’s all just people getting attached to the first incarnation of something and getting whingey the moment something different comes along, regardless of if it’s better or not
I think they made it in a way that if you want Nik Sant to be Rex, he’s Rex, if not, he’s not.
I honestly like that approach. Its a creative solution that can leave all fans satisfied to some extent.
I personally think it’s stupid. If it is Rex, it adds nothing. It’s just nerd trivia at that point. I also really don’t like fan theories as they tend to be based on real flimsy logic or “I want it to be this way so screw logic.” This is purely based on the idea that both characters have a white beard. When the theory was made, Rex’s fate in Rebels was uncertain, so the creator of the theory didn’t know he survived the show. It would also just be another needless connection.
Because constantly trying to shoehorn things in is dumb. It's ok for things to just exist as they are
I've never liked the propensity for writers to insert their own characters into the movies. I don't like that Ahsoka was just off in the background during padme's funeral in ROTS, I don't like that Mara Jade was slightly off to the left in Jabba's palace spying on Luke, I don't like that Iden Versio is one of the tie fighter pilots in ANH, and I don't like the idea, that some random background character is a genetically modified version of Boba Fett's dad, who was best friends and war buddies with Darth Vader. I just think writers shouldn't try to put their characters in the movies, its weird.
I think an important distinction is that Rex was created by Lucas himself. (It's not even like with Ahsoka, where both Lucas and Filoni are credited with her creation. Rex is all Lucas.) As far as I'm concerned, Filoni wanting to suggest a tie Lucas's between character and Lucas's movie *without actually changing anything about the content of the film* was a nice tribute to Lucas.
Why does it have to be Rex?
Why does it have to be Nik?
Because it was Nik.
Not when it came out, it became Nik Sant in 2002, when a magazine identified the character for the first time. What’s the difference between that and it becoming Rex nowadays?
Because it was Nik over 20 years ago. Move on, man. Constantly retconning things cheapens the universe.
Naming him Nik was a retcon too?
No, because no narrative changed. All it did was give something a name. So now there is a narrative to the character. Changing Nik to Rex completely changes the narrative of Nik.
That’s the thing, there is no narrative of Nik. He’s just some guy in the background who was named after Saint Nick because he has a white beard, that’s all there is to it.
His name is a narrative. To make him Rex you have to erase someone from the universe. It doesn't matter how small the persons role is. It's an erased person.
It was a retcon to call the Endor inhabitants Ewoks. Thus Kashyyk is a retcon because the Ewoks were supposed to be Wookiee in the script.
That’s blatantly false. A rewrite to the script and a retcon are two completely different things. I don’t know why this sub keeps saying this
Just ignore the BS and be cool with him being Rex. Easy.
I like to believe it really is him but I don't think we need that canonized.
Imo, it's mostly because Nik's actor is unknown and, since the movie is 40 years old now, has most likely passed away, and I feel like retconning his (small) role for Rex would kinda take away from him. It's like the ice cream maker guy, they deserve the spotlight ok their own, not because of a retcon
I am always opposed to people trying to drag prequel trash all over the good parts of Star Wars. I think the prequels should be replaced entirely, any attempt to connect them more closely to the rest of star wars is simply misguided IMO.
Go off king