The General Star Wars Thread

It's in the Live-Action TV subforum, since it's a show rather than a movie.

Edited by Parable on May 27th 2022 at 8:31:38 AM

It's not really that the FO was too powerful - it's that the New Republic had to be made comically incompetent for them to work.

More Star Wars announcements...both involving kids!

• Ten days ago, Jon Watts from the MCU Spider-Man trilogy was reported to be working on a Star Wars series that was described as "A Galactic Version of 1980s Coming-of-Age Adventures". Yesterday, that series was formally announced as Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, with Jude Law starring in it. Fair warning: Dave Filoni has described this one as "as much for kids as The Clone Wars."
• Today came the announcement of something that's very much for kids: Young Jedi Adventures! Set during the High Republic era as Younglings study the ways of the Force and become Jedi: Compassion, self-discipline, teamwork, patience, and friendship. Expect this one for 2023 on Disney+ and Disney Junior

Trailer for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Fallen Order's sequel.

Because Rebel Alliance was already taken.

It honestly says a lot about Hollywood culture and many sci-fi writers when they can't actually write a functioning good government that doesn't collapse like a house of cards against the evil Empire. Even when it's large scale enough to ignore in favor of the more character-driven stories with Rey.

But what can I expect when Rooting for the Empire exists in nerd culture.

I think it's less about empire worship, than about wanting to have a small group of heroes do everything important, for narrative reasons. This just about works in fantasy, when your talking small kingdoms. It really doesn't when you're talking about interstellar warfare.

So the general solution seems to be, scale down the conflict to a level that a reasonable number of named characters can manage. This usually requires collapsing any large 'good' government as otherwise our heroes would just be side-players in the real war. Or you'd need to do it as basically political/military thriller.

Amusingly Warhammer 40K at least allows the Imperium to be running at full scale through the universe.

Of course the Imperium aren't heroes of course

Probably because they feel it would be to diferent from star wars, specially it would be closer to the sequels were the jedi are pretty much goverment backed(or a least in cooperation).

Star wars always have this thing of trying to copy the original trilogy over and over. I will said is probably why Kreia argument feel it have some merit because how much the setting reallies on "dark sider will fuck everything, you and your pal are only thing who can defeat them"

Edited by unknowing on May 27th 2022 at 7:30:19 AM

That's just history though.

History is cyclical, things happen over and over again because no one learns anything.

You don't need the Force to show that no matter what the same kind of bastards will always be born.

Edited by slimcoder on May 27th 2022 at 6:02:02 AM

In this case I think it's mostly just the desire to have underdogs, everymen heroes, etc. That and a belief that emulating the OT was the only option they had, due to a lot of people saying the PT sucked. I don't blame them for having this position, but it was wrong in hindsight.

With Kreia:

• For one, she's bothsiding, it's just the Dark Side that's responsible.

• As pointed out, it's "just history". Of course there's always going to be war. What, are you expecting an end of history?

• Remember, the Dark Side is "merely" the metaphysical concept of evil (and the Light Side good). You do not have to be Force Sensitive to serve The Dark Side.

• In addition, you have you keep in mind that nothing Palpatine did really required Force Sensitivity. To use an example: Bob Paige from Deus Ex is basically Palpatine without space magic, and he's not significantly less effective. He could have pulled off Palpatine's plan just as easily.

IIRC, the thing Avellone had a problem with (and communicated through Kreia) was the idea that the Force is a conscious, sapient being, and thus to him it felt like all the various Light vs. Dark wars were essentially mortals dancing on the strings of an amoral deity because reasons.

Star Wars version of the problem of evil, essentially.

"You don't need the Force to show that no matter what the same kind of bastards will always be born. "

Is not that but rather that they were all the same bastards: dark sider who look similar to each other almost rising empire by themselves and the jedi almost being the only standing in their way.

Kreia make sense as sort of meta critic about force users being so important(maybe too much) in the setting.

@Hamburger Time The problem with that interpretation is that the whole of The Force isn't a single conscious being. You can say The Light Side is God and The Dark Side is Satan (or more accurately, Light is Ahura Mazda and Dark is Angra Mainyu).

Even then it's probably more like "The Light Side is God, and Darksiders are people who oppose God within The Force".

Also The Force is not stated to be omnipotent outright, so no problem of evil either.

EHMAHGERD check this out. An up-to-date New Canon complete galaxy map as shown off at Celebration, created by the wizard of Star Wars continuity, Jason Fry!

Niiiiiiiiice.

I think it's less about empire worship, than about wanting to have a small group of heroes do everything important, for narrative reasons. This just about works in fantasy, when your talking small kingdoms. It really doesn't when you're talking about interstellar warfare.

So the general solution seems to be, scale down the conflict to a level that a reasonable number of named characters can manage. This usually requires collapsing any large 'good' government as otherwise our heroes would just be side-players in the real war. Or you'd need to do it as basically political/military thriller.

Except when you think about it, the OT heroes are side-players in the war. Leia may be a prominent member of the Rebel Alliance, but ROTJ makes it clear it's Mon Mothma who is the real leader of the Rebel Alliance and she doesn't even have much beyond a reporting what the Bothan spies manage to get out. Then you have Admiral Ackbar, a brand new character who hasn't been seen before yet people act like he's an important general for years.

These characters exist to show that there is a larger government and rebellion at play, and we are only following these particular players here. TESB showcases the size of the Rebel fleet at the end of the film. And of course, we started this whole journey in the most backwater planet where the bare minimum of importance occurs for our heroes. The best context of the galaxy was the Imperials arguing over the dissolving of the Senate and the use of the Death Star.

It could have been written in ST that this is a localized war that happens to involve the Skywalker family and their importance. The New Republic would have been in the distance, often talked about but too big and busy to dedicating resources to a war that seemed insignificant. Lots of world governments in fiction are like that. And it also opens up possibilities of other adventures going on at the same time.

By destroying the New Republic, you shrunk the galaxy and the possibilities. It's like destroying the Rebel Alliance in TESB and have the rebels consisted of Luke, Leia, Lando, Chewie, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Wedge and claim that's enough people rebuild a giant organization.

Mad respect for the map. How long must that have taken?

Also, 2023 for Fallen Order sequel? I guess that's fair, with COVID delays and all that. Still, way too long to wait

Would you rather they rush it out? Because that's worked so well for any video game?

Of course not. Especially not after the Cyberpunk disaster. But I'm excited ;)

The Resistance is basically a place holder name... that they could never come up with anything better for

The original pitch was the Movies would be set AFTER the FO has already reconquered The galaxy

IE mirroring Nazi occupied France with the Resistance being named after the French Resistance

They nixed that cause they felt that was... TOO insulting to the OT to have the NR and NJO effectively wiped out off screen

that and they wanted Han back to being a smuggler which wouldn't make much sense with the FO in charge already...

Frankly this is starting to sound like Clone Saga levels of Writer Fan disconnect where the Writer is picking options cause it appealed to them as a writer not does this make sense as a continuation of a story

I disagree? The other parts of the alliance play the role of the cavalry in what are essentially a series of very small raids led by the protagonists. In a true galactic war (as we see in the clone wars) you can't really have your named characters do everything without it getting very silly. Hence the broad focus and episodic nature on a bunch of different characters. That's a lot harder to do in a film trilogy.

I'm not saying destroying the New Republic was the only solution. Frankly, a better solution would just have been to not try to replay the OT and done something new where the existence of a New Republic is not an active hinderance to the story you want to tell. There's been a bunch of good suggestions, but my personal preference, since they clearly desperately wanted to move away from the PT and it's political/economic focus would have been something more exploration focused. The Unknown Regions are an area where hyperspace travel is all messed up and you can't just go running home. I'd have done an exploration story.

The New Republic sends an expedition to explore this strange region, they find horrible danger, get in trouble and get out of it, saving some folks, losing some troops and make it home again. I'd go exploration, horror, hold the line as my trio of movie themes, with the New Republic as the goal to get everyone back to.

It feels like they were trying to set it up as limited war zone where the FO is the threat to the Frontier which far from the NR

hell the plot is mostly a fight over a map to where Luke is

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on May 28th 2022 at 9:44:48 AM

I feel like the idea was they wanted the First Order to wipe out the New Republic and take over for a new rebellion.

And everyone just gnashed their teeth over the New Republic being gone.

At least in the old EU the New Republic lasted for...23 years and was in the middle of an actual war and splintered due to overwhelming force and the consequences of losing Coruscant in a horrific battle. The New Republic got hit by one terrorist attack and immediately fell apart, for all we know.

People are mad because in Legends the New Republic went down fighting, while in the new canon it was taken out back and shot like a dog.

Not to mention all of the pre-sequel trilogy EU stuff portrayed the New Republic as immediately falling into the same trap as the Old Republic and becoming useless while the New Republic remained a functioning, well-run government.

Edited by theLibrarian on May 28th 2022 at 11:59:12 AM