Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoiler Thread

The thing is that there is no plan that is a true Xanatos Gambit, especially from the omniscient viewpoint of the audience who has the opportunity to look back at previous events and identify where things went wrong. There is a difference between a character manipulating both sides of a conflict and working in unexpected events into the plan vs. the claim that every step of the plan was anticipated from the beginning.

Consider the fact that Sidious sent Maul after Amidala to take her back to Naboo and sign the treaty, Palpatine was not expecting her to make it to Coruscant. But he used what had to be already existing political maneuvers and her voice to earn the senate vote. The Clone army was also not ordered until about the same time as the Naboo invasion, so there's a good chance that the very premise of the Clone Wars was because the Naboo invasion was successfully repelled.

What, the leather jackets aren't cool enough for you?

Wasn't the primary use of the clone army to kill the Jedi? I feel like that was always part of the plan.

The Clone Army had multiple purposes for Sheev. It acts as both a means to establish a military power to enforce his dictatorship and a means to lure the Jedi into a trap.

As for Sidious's planning, he's adaptable to the situation and he has multiple contingency plans should something set him back (Amidala's interference comes into mind several times). Even his Death Star II has a potential contingency plans in the event the Rebels actually the destroy the Shield Generator. A deleted scene reveals that he would have the Death Star II turn to Endor and blow it up with the super laser if Han and Leia succeeded. And given that Luke managed to have enough time to escape the exploding Death Star after lugging Darth Vader around, it wouldn't surprise me if Sidious had an escape route if the Death Star is lost.

edited 5th Feb '16 2:42:49 PM by Shadao

Sidious plans that we see in the films appear to be the result of planning, contingency plans and adjusting the plan as it goes on. The fact that there were many ways it could go wrong doesn't mean his entire plan hinged on it going exactly as it did.

The Clones were rooted in handicapping the Republic, forcing them to rely on one, unified fighting force. It did turn out just about perfectly, but the only vital part of the plan required Palpatine to be available to initiate Order 66. Plenty of Jedi had already died in the war, with a more traditional army Palpatine very well could have instigated a similar but less "complete" version of Order 66.

Unfortunately, the pseudo-Nazi imagery just looks... snazzy.

The republic might not have supported a traditional army since it would cost real lives, the clones were expendable and only cost money like the Separatist Droids.

The traditional army would have also caused another war because plenty of units that didn't have chips in their heads would have protested or refused.

The only reason Order 66 worked as well as it did is because Palpatine had also turned public opinion against the Jedi and built up a separate military infrastructure where the Jedi weren't an absolutely mandatory part of the system (such as Tarkin). Without that, the public would have rejected claims of treason and he would have had no centralized chain of command to deal with the fallout.

Certainly, with a traditional army the Order 66 protocol wouldn't have been as quickly followed and a lot more Jedi would have slipped through it. Many clones still refused the Order because their friendship with their Jedi commanders overriding their obedience chips.

You got a source for that last sentence?

edited 5th Feb '16 6:30:51 PM by TheAirman

There are still Jedi that survived in various places.

edited 5th Feb '16 6:50:31 PM by theLibrarian

In Legends it's fairly well entrenched that some Jedi survived because of Clones hesitating when given the order. "Dark Lord: Rise of Darth Vader" explicitly follows minor Jedi Roan Shryne before, during and after Order 66.

There's not much in the new EU, but nothing to contradict that. I believe it is official that Captain Rex was not involved with Order 66.

edited 5th Feb '16 6:53:59 PM by KJMackley

Known survivors are Obi-Wan, Yoda, Luminara (initially, anyway), Ahsoka and Kanan. Did I miss anyone?

All of those Temple Guards that are in the second half of season 2 of Rebels.

Oh, right. Forgot about them. We still don't know what their deal is, though, do we?

I don't think there's anywhere in the PT where Sideous could have outlined his grand plan to conquer the Republic, without bogging down the plot too much. But unfortunately, without knowing Sid's plan beforehand, it's too easy for viewers to come away from the PT with the impression that everything went exactly according to keikaku*, and that Sid wasn't constantly modifying stuff on the fly.

[*]Translator's note: keikaku means plan

Damn Chinese cartoons making kids throw random Asian words around

Yea, we really didn't need him putting that out there. We already knew it was coming, somehow.

@Karkat: Barriss. Filoni confirmed that she survived the Jedi purge. No idea where she is currently though.

edited 5th Feb '16 8:18:41 PM by higherbrainpattern

Yeah the problem is that they never bothered to SHOW or even explain to you HOW Sheev supposedly turned the Republic against the Jedi (so the senate just buying his story feels really out of nowhere/contrived in ROTS, because the set-up isn't there). Nor do the Jedi question the Clones (which is morally shady enough) all that much, despite REALLY obvious evidence that something shady is going on. Nor do anyone seems to consider that all of this stuff conveniently started happened at around the same time that Sheev started his rise to power, or that the only one truly benefitting from the war is HIM, etc. And this problem of "show don't tell" is more of an issue in the PT than in the OT (or TFA) because the PT seems to be deliberately trying to go for a "deeper" plot and it's supposed to set up for the OT. Basically some good ideas, bungled execution imo.

The Revenge novelization did it a bit better (though only to a point; it obviously couldn't really cover the first two movies). The Jedi did note that Palpatine was accumulating a lot of power, but in the end determined that he couldn't be Sidious simply because he already ruled the Galaxy. The missing piece was that they didn't realize that Sidious' plan was revenge against the Jedi, and ruling the Galaxy a means to that end.

The Clone Wars went into more detail about that. The movies were forced to streamline and focus on the absolute necessities.

Plus, political maneuvers are pretty static events filled with meetings and speeches, making it kind of hard to SHOW what's going on. That's the reason they cut out the meetings with the Delegation of 2,000 from ROTS, who would go on to be leaders in the Rebel Alliance.

If you can't do it in a movie then don't do it in a movie.

Ah, I see, didn't know that. I was reluctant to count anyone who doesn't have a canon fate (which I don't think Shaak Ti has, aside from a few possible allusions to her cut death from Rot S).

Also, why are we all suddenly calling Palpatine by his first name?

edited 5th Feb '16 8:48:56 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Because Sheev is funny to use. Just like Tom for Voldemort.

Because Sheev is best boy, with best name.