#mostly good!

I don’t think we’ll get much of Thrawn in season 1 - it looks to be focused on the Fallen Jedi, so I expect they’ll be the big bad of season 1 and we’ll get Thrawn in season 2 and onwards. We have been promised a twist, so I’m very curious to see if the Grysk will be brought in as a secret big bad. I think that would be neat, and could be a great twist after setting up Thrawn as the big bad in season 1 and maybe 2.

I do think Lars will do amazing as Thrawn - he’s a fantastic actor with experience with the character, and for anyone whining that he doesn’t look like the book covers, 1) No? Those are drawings? This is a real person? and 2) Yes? This is at least 10 years post-Treason, 30 years post-Ascendancy. Characters get older? And they’re still badass?

I’m also very curious what Ezra’s been up to. I wonder if he’s still a Jedi - 10 years stuck with Thrawn, he could very well have Fallen. Now that could be a twist! Heck, he could be dead. With Sabine left chasing a ghost... Not sure Filoni would try and pull that, but it would sure be a twist!

The less good: The costuming is a bit lazy. It’s pretty good considering Disney is getting quite lazy with their costuming, but it’s definitely not as good as it could be - more in range with, honestly, the rest of the Star Wars stuff coming out these days. I do wish Thrawn was a bit darker blue, and had the luster from the book covers, but I imagine that’s tricky in makeup. Still, it’s not bad!

The we’ll see how it goes: Thrawn is almost definitely going to be a villain, and will probably be killed during the course of the show. I don’t think that’s a bad thing - I know a lot of people cling to his book characterization, but I see the books -> Rebels -> HTTE series as the slide of a well-meaning person into fascism. As much as we’d all love to see him go back to the Ascendancy and defeat the Grysk, it’s equally in character for him to cling to his mission with the Empire as the “only way” to achieve victory (consider the sunk-cost fallacy, and tell me that doesn’t fit Thrawn to a T). He’s stubborn, he’s ruthless, and he believes in a strong military and the efficiency of a dictatorship - and the New Republic is a threat to all of that, and a threat to his goal of building the biggest military ever to defend the galaxy from the Grysk (and anyone else who might challenge him...).

There’s many ways it could be done well - acknowledging the complexity of his character and goals and making his darker actions a product of that - and ways it could be done less satisfyingly. I’m hopeful, and I’m excited to see what comes of it!