I've been watching the "Star Wars Explained" series on the original trilogy, and they're good at finding, or coming up with, convincing explanations for a variety of things that don't make that much sense. But while watching the one on ESB, this question occurred to me that I can't answer: What did the Rebel Alliance actually gain by setting up a base on H0th? There are plenty of reasons a planetary base, like Yavin or Talon Karrde's Myrkr base in the Thrawn Trilogy, might be preferable to just living on ships. Access to trade and infrastructure, in the case of populated planets. Ability to grow or hunt for food. Or just the morale benefits of your people having access to the outdoors and fresh air. But Hoth had none of these. Not even the morale advantages — if anything it was probably less comfortable than just living on ships. And they sacrificed mobility, having to deal with evacuating a base when they were discovered as opposed to just firing up the ships' hyperdrives and going. So why bother with Echo base? Even if the Hoth system was a sensible place to be because it was obscure and off the beaten path, why not just park their ships in orbit, or hide them in the asteroid belt, and have a mobile base of operations?
Took the kids to see the phantom menace last night. I liked that they got something different out of the movie than I did. They liked Jar Jar. They were touched by Anakin leaving his mom, maybe forever. They didn’t already know who everyone was. (An hour in my son asked where Luke was.) During the car ride home they tried to piece together how everyone was related and were puzzled how Luke could end up back on Tattooine if his mom was a queen. My wife asked how it was when I got home and just said “it was the phantom menace”. She understood.
My wife saw a thumbnail of "The Bad Batch" and thought it said "Star Wars: The Bad Bitch" Which I would watch the hell out of.