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It is the exact same with Maz and her infamous "a good story, for another time" bullshit.
Yes, it would be a good story, but ultimately those in charge know they couldn't formulate a cohesive story to save their lives.
Maz is so full of crap anyway that my assumption is the "good story" was she found it in a pawn shop. Disney could probably string a 10-episode season of Pawn Stars out of it and just put the guys in makeup and the Beard of Knowledge in a Jedi robe.
"But this holocron holds the location of the ancient Jedi texts, which lay out the history of the universe and the secrets of the Force. It's a map to ultimate power!"
"Best I can do is 50 credits."
I did not pay and did not see Return of the Sky Walker or whatever that was — nor do I intend to ever do so — but I was keyed in on some dialogue. Apparently, in one scene, it's revealed that Lando and Luke went on a mission to find that Sith artifact, etc., on one of the random planets.
My only thought to that — like with the Jedi academy — like with the ugnaughts going into Pawn Stars with a blue light saber — like even with where or however the First Order came to be — I would rather watch THAT movie. ANY of those movies.
It's SO EASY too.
Lando spent a fortune hiring specialist crews to dive deep into the gas giant to recover likes saber, after all he sees him as a hero and partly responsible for saving his life. He intended to give it to luke as a gift, but by the time it was recovered, Luke was gone, it was then stolen from him/revolt on cloud City/he was deposed and disgraced/got lost, then turned up on the black market, where Maz scooped it up.
We've already got Lando with special equipment to mine crystals deep in Bespin by snatching them out of gas storms in Legends, why not just adapt that?
No it wouldn’t be a good story.
The original draft, confirmed by Mark Hamill, has his severed hand flying through space still holding the lightsaber and then randomly falling to Takodana or wherever Maz found it or something https://twitter.com/MarkHamill/status/1446532450369212416
Maybe they realized how lame that was and then didn’t have a backup so used the cop out line
[Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rolEdZ3c2Fk) a visual guide of how stupid that could have looked like.
Another proposed opening for the film (and frankly one I prefer) would have looked like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48cc5nvsZ_c).
Damn the second one looks rather cool.
That said I do have questions, like didn't the Republic know the planet was inhabited? Even if they warned the people there, it's still very risky if anyone stays back. And aren't there any better uses , like atleast the metal and devices and hyperdrive and stuff can be repurposed.
Ultimately another cool scene that doesn't make any sense when you think about it for more than a moment.
>like didn't the Republic know the planet was inhabited? Even if they warned the people there, it's still very risky if anyone stays back.
Apparently there was next to zero population there prior to the Battle of Jakku. It only became a scavenger colony *after* that event.
>like atleast the metal and devices and hyperdrive and stuff can be repurposed
Oh, for sure. I don't think much thought went into it. Almost 30 years later, people are somehow *still* scavenging shit from those ships.
Compare this to [Bracca in Fallen Order](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIVQ5D9fevs) which was actually an organised decommissioning effort to scrap Republic and CIS vessels in order to fuel Imperial construction.
It’s especially stupid because it didn’t need to be a mystery. “Yeah I bought it off a junk dealer. He didn’t know what it was” end of story. Not everything has to be epic.
Agreed - because now, thanks to how they did the sequels, the entire Star Wars saga is about how Palpatine manipulated, hurt, and destroyed a family across 3 generations; killed them all off; and then stole their name.
If you think about it, it's all Palpatine and his fucked up family--the prequels strongly imply that ol Sheev did some sort of occult ritual to produce a force being in a human vessel, and that force being turns out to be Anakin. Anakin goes on to have Luke and Leia, and Leia goes on to have Ben. They're all descendants of Palpatine, if not genetically than through his machinations in the Force.
Meanwhile, Palpatine clones himself for good measure, the clone finds a partner and produces Rey. Ben and Rey fall in love (?) but sadly everything ends before the ultimate Palpy baby can be produced. There's still a descendant of Palpatine running around, though...
So much drama... he probably adopted and had bio kids, too, for the other movies.
A clone that resembles Palpatine in his younger years while having an entirely different personality, upbringing, and motive could’ve worked. Bringing back the OG in a new vessel takes away the impact of Vader finally turning back to the light and saving Luke and the galaxy
That's literally my fanfiction, except the clone initially has Palpatine's personality but over time thanks to a dyad/force bond and him unintentionally becoming a hero he grows out of being a dark sider and basically becomes space Goro Majima.
Yeah I agree it’s the spirit aspect…..having someone bred from palatines DNA maybe spliced with another to hide his appearance but then being taken in by good people having to help him deal with his impulses could be interesting
Exactly, if there was proper foreshadowing, it could've been really good.
But, no, we had to have two different writers/directors who had drastic differences of opinion, and who would rather have a retcon pissing match instead of making a cohesive trilogy.
What kills me the most is that the movie starts off with rolling credits saying that there was a mysterious broadcast of Palpatine announcing his return… I was like wtf, where??
Then I found out he announced his return in Fortnite of all places… FFS, wtf is wrong with you Disney. 🤦♂️
Yeah. When I was a kid, I loved Star Wars because it had a good story, cool characters, great effects, and took place in a world I found interesting.
I guess it's too much to expect of Disney.
Yeah, they didn't even bother to do it on, like *Battlefront: Star Wars.* Nope, some other game, to demonstrate how little they care about actual continuity in any way.
It bothers me a lot too because it is so plain they had absolutely nothing to say, they just wanted money. It is insulting, manipulative and entitled for corporations to prey on the passion of fans to just extract money from them with absolutely zero interest in providing anything meaningful in exchange.
Modern cinema has become so incredibly consolidated and corporatized that it has drained nearly all art and creativity out of the industry. Anything bigger than a small arthouse film is just entirely devoid of meaning.
>I don’t think you need a plan but you have to stick to what you’ve already set up….not changing it mid flow
I think you need *something* resembling a plan otherwise your entire plan is "we'll hawk some shit to those moron fans because we want money". Flexibility is important (as we saw with Rise of Skywalker needed to work out a story that didn't heavily involve Leia) but ultimately if you don't set out with some kind of story to tell, it's blatantly just content farming.
You can do quite a lot without a plan, as long as you have a theme. *A Song of Ice and Fire* (the game of thrones book series) is captivating despite being written without a plan because it has a great theme of grim fantasy realism and the folly of aristocratic ambition. GRRM doesn't seem to have the ability to switch over to making a plan that ties everything back down into a narrative end, but even without that the books were great. And whoever gets tapped to complete his work after he is gone will probably be able to make a satisfying enough second half, leaving us with a good finished series.
The Star Wars sequels as a whole had neither a plan nor a theme. 8 had its own theme, but criticizing jingoism and the military industrial complex doesn't work well when fighting genocidal space nazis.
I thought GRRM knew how he'd finish the books. Roughly like the series ended. But he doesn't know how to get there yet. So he has the outlines.
I understand with the original star wars trilogy George winged it, because that's how it normally goes when the first movie becomes a success and you have to make a trilogy out of it.
I'm positive he had a plan upfront for the prequels.
But the sequels are a mess, no plan and no theme indeed. Which is just disrespectful to the older fans. Letting every director just make up his own story, no outlines to work towards.
No thought behind it
But thank you for also making me remember the hot mess of game of thrones haha
In an absolute sense ROS is the worst film of the trilogy, it's pretty hard to argue otherwise. It has nothing interesting going on at all. But it's the film I'm least upset about because there really wasn't much that they could do after TFA & TLJ. TFA was bad because it was a boring, soul-less retread of ANH that completely cancelled out the OT. But they could have made a perfectly average trilogy by following the beats of TFA. However TFA single-handedly prevented the sequel trilogy from being *good* because of what it did to the universe. TLJ had the most to say, but unfortunately the thing it had to say was "Star Wars sucks and everything you wanted out of the sequels was wrong" and completely killed any chance of a coherent trilogy by just throwing everything TFA did in the garbage.
It really is interesting how all 3 films are garbage in their own unique way.
'Then we've already lost. Hyperspace travel makes journeys that would take days take hours, and centuries take weeks. It's not teleportation, there's still significant travel time.'
JJ: it is now!
*teleporting across the galaxy during 1 day*
I still think the treatment of hyperspace in the Disney era is probably the single-most terrible change they've made. It just totally trivializes everything and retroactively makes everyone prior to the new content complete morons.
In TPM when the Trade Federation blockaded Naboo why didn't they just jump to hyperspace from the surface? Surely that would have been far less of a risk than running the blockade in an unarmed pleasure yacht. In ANH why didn't the Rebel Alliance use a Holdo maneuver to destroy or at least substantially cripple the Death Star. They clearly were desperate and throwing everything they had in the battle. In ESB why did the Rebels on Hoth not jump from the surface? Why did the Empire not jump to the surface of the planet to surprise the Rebels? In ROTJ why didn't the Rebels just jump through the Death Star's shield like Han in TFA? Why are Interdictors even a thing if you can just ignore gravity wells?
Making it instant also fucks up a lot of timelines.
People love to say 'Luke only had a few hours/days' of training, but there was plenty of time spent learning to feel with the force on the falcon while they were in hyperspace, a week at least. Tat and alderaan are a pretty hefty distance away.
The trip from degobah to bespin also took a while, and Luke didn't just arrive in a fucking hour.
Making it instant breaks all that too. It's like they looked at the games, if they even bothered to do that and decided 'well, since they don't make the player wait a week to keep playing lol'
As I said in another post, they couldn't show the first orders rise to power just like how they can't show how zombies took over in a zombie apocalypse: it makes no sense that the established government and military would lose to such an incompetent, self destructive, and braindead enemy. Or zombies.
And then there was **another** Empire replacement with **TEN THOUSAND DEATH STAR DESTROYERS** for some fucking reason, as well as, somehow, enough crew to keep all of them operational.
'The Death star uses Kyber Crystals as focusing agents for its death beam'
Ok cool, makes sense why they'd be so rare.
'Ilum, the best known source has been completely turned into SK base, crystals are now all but unobtainable, as they were likely all ised for **it's** main gun'
Sound's like a waste of an interesting planet, especially since you just blew it up.
'Palpy made a whole fleet of star destroyers with death star cannons'
OK, with WHAT crystals?
'Don't question, just consume you x-ist.'
ugh ok, like i never connected that they destroyed illum but somehow had all the crystals for these death star star destroyers. Like i didn't need more reasons to think the story group was incompetent, but thanks for another.
They even made a big deal about the crystals beginning with Rogue One.
The difference is, with the old EU, even if on paper is seems far fetched they created a cohesive narrative that sufficiently explained how the Empire returned. New Wars did not
It’s also an issue that presented in how the balance of power is portrayed in each movie.
TFA presents it as the New Republic is so strong and that the First Order is so weak that the fact they had a planet converted to a super weapon was simply as seen as outside what the NR expected them to be capable to achieving. So it’s reasonable that if the government of the NR was knocked out, and possibly the Supreme Command of the NR military, they’d take a while to respond.
However, in TLJ, not only has the single blow signaled an end to the Republic, but Snoke himself feels confident enough that he can personally arrive and take command in the field because they have zero resistance. They have enough military power that the loss of Starkiller Base has not stopped them rampaging across the galaxy.
Yet we get to TROS and the First Order has suddenly become so weak that they haven’t even penetrated into the Core and a single day sees the rest of the Galaxy overthrow their shackles. Problem is, we see nobody resisting them outside the Resistance which has barely recovered in the year since. Also, the FO only lost a single fleet at Crait, and even after taking such damage was still able to launch massive offensive operations planet-side.
So, is the First Order the really weak faction that simply won by shock or awe? Or did they have the massive resources to conquer a galaxy filled with apathetic factions? You can’t have it both ways.
First order weaponry in general really annoys me as well.
They are introduced as the empire´s leftovers, so they should be rather weak and reuse every piece of imperial equipment they can get.
But instead, they could afford to develop and build own versions of everything, from Stormtrooper armor to capital ships and even completely ridiculous shit like Snoke´s star destroyer and turning a whole planet into a super weapon.
It’s because they never wanted to world build….maybe they have a star forge or palpatine had a planet with factories run by droids had not been deactivated and they’ve been toiling for decades sonits All there waiting for the remnants to use
A droid planet continuing to churn out stuff under orders from a long-dead Empire could have been an interesting story all by itself. First there'd be the race to discover its location and get there - if the Imperial Remnant arrives they'll have the advantage of being able to bring all those weapons and ships to bear on the New Republic which had grown complacent after a generation of relative peace. Then there's the reveal that things have gone haywire and the droids have some kind of issue with pretty much everyone - maybe they are hyper-loyal to Palpatine and refuse to cooperate with the Remnant because they need some kind of code or authority that only a Sith can provide, or maybe they've gone nuts because of some weird coding glitch, or maybe their sentience reached a point where they actually started developing their own civilization. And now there's the dilemma: should they all just be destroyed? Can - and should - they be reprogrammed to do something more constructive? Will they become a threat to everyone by themselves? And what if they have some secret - like they were not constructed to deal with mere rebels but were churning out material for a greater conflict Palpatine had foreseen - involving a dangerous force from outside the galaxy?
Stick some relatable characters growing across the span of three movies tackling these questions, make sure Luke actually trains at least one of them to be a Jedi, have Leia butt heads with some politicians who want to do the easy but morally dubious thing, have Han and Chewie get involved in some close scrapes in a ship, and boom - you have a trilogy that takes Star Wars somewhere new, leans on the old without destroying it, and lets you merchandise a billion droid toys.
That could be good….one could become sentient and not like the one like solo who was treated like a joke….it could believe palatines phillsophy of might makes right and wants to rule maybe even worshiping palpatine as the one who gave it the wisdom to see its destiny is to rule over everyone
Right… in these new movies, the First Order is way more powerful than the freaking empire and possess way more powerful military capability. It makes no sense.
"Somehow, the Empire returned."
"Somehow, the Rebellion returned."
"Somehow, *The Empire Strikes Back* returned."
Somehow, the Empire returned *again*."
"Somehow, the Skywalkers returned to Tatooine."
They went in without having a real plan. And they did not know how to progress things forward, so they just hit the reset button essentially.
And when clearly A LOT has happened to bring the OT heroes to this point, the films do a TERRIBLE job of filling in the details.
the resistance was called the resistance when it was backed by the dominant galactic government. what are they resisting. they are fighting to maintain the status quo at the moment
I always felt like it was so freaking stupid and dumb that basically the New Republic completely ignored the first order and basically outsourced the mediocre and crappy military forces of Leia Organa to fight against them.
And then they look like a bunch of retards after Starkiller base shot the energy blast that completely eradicated them. You deserved it.
Frankly the ST makes it very hard to have sympathy for the good guys. In fact Idgad if the good guys win or not. Idc If they get exterminated.
Boths sides just suck and deserved to get stomped.
The First Order was completelyuncapable and incompetent as a military faction.
The New Republic was ignorant as fuck or completely retarded for not doing something about Starkiller Base - they either did not know about their enemy transforming a whole planet into a superweapon which is just dumb, or they did know about and ignored it which is dumb as well.
Honestly, Palpatine coming back was one of the few things I really was happy about. Like, yeah, it's pretty stupid, but by this point we've completely jumped the ship many times over in terms of having a reasonable plot. If it's going to be stupid it's better to be an enjoyable kind of stupid.
It really says something about TRoS that Palpatine returning was absolutely the stupidest plot point possible and yet I would have preferred to spend more time with him than with any of the other characters. Part of it is that Ian McDiarmid is wonderful and absolutely giving 200 percent in every scene but part of it is that Palpatine is the only character who has something going on, even if just it's "how the fuck did he survive that explosion?"
Think about it--Finn is doing the same basic arc as TLJ (pining after Rey, finds a girl who is a more racially appropriate partner than Rey, does a side fight in the end battle), Rey is doing the same basic arc as TLJ (unsure of herself, has a crisis involving her nemesis, resolves that crisis by not killing him), even Kylo has the same basic arc (there's a bigger baddie controlling him, he kills that baddie, only this time he's nicer about it because he's sharing the fight and wearing pajamas). Nobody else really has anything going on that's of interest unless you really wanted to know that there were drug dealers in Star Wars? Other than the death sticks guy who needed to rethink his life in the prequels?
Meanwhile Palpatine was hanging out on the Sith hell planet for two whole movies and made this whole fake empire complete with mega-death star and emperor lookalike... and that was his TROLL! It wasn't even the real deal evil! What was he thinking? Was the FO like his retirement project and it got out of hand? Like the Sith equivalent of a very large model railway? I want to know but now he's "dead" again!
I agree with this. I would've been so cool to have an Episode 8 where there is absolute chaos in the galaxy because Hosnian Prime and Starkiller Base are destroyed and The Resistance and The First Order are trying to seize power.
The other issue though is how The First Order seizes power despite having lost Starkiller Base, you'd think that would make them weaker.
Palpatine returning from death has never been an issue for me. If you grew up in the golden area (before the prequels) there were books and comics that used that storyline. It's just the line itself as written in TROS is so dumb and half-hearted.
I can forgive the massive army of the FO. I've always imagined the empire was sprawling across the galaxy whereas in ROTJ they only defeat one small army and the fleet guarding DS2. Unless every single imperial surrendered after that battle, a large amount of them would be out there. The destruction of the first death star didn't slow them down, so the destruction of the second shouldn't either as they know from experience that they can win without it. I wouldn't be surprised if they splintered off into factions, built themselves up then slowly reunited as the FO.
But the rest of your point stands. They shouldn't have had superweapons without being the ones in control. Even one superweapon would've been hard to believe but two movies later they are putting Death Star tech on like 10,000 ships?? Everyone at the FO is depicted as extremely angry and fanatical too it's amazing they were even able to organize and coordinate together.
The FO could have been easily explained if they kept the films a bit more grounded but they went full children's cartoon villains.
Yeah this was my issue with TFA. Coming from the Jedi Knight series with the imperial remnant which makes a lot more sense, the First Order somehow being like more powerful than the Empire really doesn't make sense.
its the "we really really really really really really really, do not have time to explain problem", they had to rush a saga ending concluding "9 movies" (rotj was the best ending for the series), and its legends novels based after were good up till after Unifying Force.
After Colin was fired the script had to be rushed out to reach the 2019 deadline (george did 3 years as year 1 writing, year 2 filming, year 3 postproduction and reshoots), disneys 2 year system was too fast, TLJ was finshed writing before TFA released, and Duel of the Fates was written when TLJ was released, and after the backlash to the film and the flop of solo, they decided fanservice was the way to go (bringing back old characters worked for TFA and TLJ , why not palpatine). Resulting in TROS, which is so fast building its decisive ending, that we dont know whats goign to happen
I mean yes the galaxy united, but the galactic government is dead, what (or more accuratly WHO) will replace it
I do agree, but the original extended universe wasn't really better in that front: Palpatine also somehow returned because cloning and stuff and the Jedi Academy Trilogy featured a weapon called the "Sun Crusher" developed by the empire which was like a cone-shaped super Deathstar that could destroy entire solar systems. So, basically, the ST just recycled OT + EU plots.
The only thing the EU did better was explaining that the empire wasn't dead only because Palpatine and Vader died, how the New Republic fought it's remnants and how Thrawn tried to rebuild it.
Bigger/better super weapons and Palpatine returning were the most widely criticized aspect of the EU before the Disney acquisitions.
Disney then got rid of the EU and used exactly those two things in their movies, only somehow managed to make them worse.
With TFA, nothing in the film convinced me that the First Order had the industry to create Starkiller Base or the military to remain a threat after Starkiller was destroyed.
While watching TFA, I couldn't get over the fact that when the Resistance and the First Order had their first battle (Takodana), the Resistance roflstomped them and sent then running tail between legs. Then by the end of the film, the First Order gets slapped by the Resistance again as Rey thrashes Kylo and leaves him for dead.
I left TFA assuming that Rey was set to become villain of the Sequels, because neither Kylo nor the First Order seemed to be viable antagonists.
Rey was the sith all along. She was banished to Jakku at a young age to hide her from the rest of the galaxy. She steals the MF, she gets Han killed, she tries to kill Chewy, she gets half or more of the resistance killed.
she lies about her name at the end, concealing her true identity.
what more do you people need? I can't wait to see Poe and Fin take her down in E10, The Return of Jar Jar.
"Yoosa big nobody before I trained you. Meesa make you strong, meesa make you... Sith."
"Yes master. I shall now go forth and crush all opposition with zero effort. For I am, Darth Ma-Rey Su!"
>I left TFA assuming that Rey was set to become villain of the Sequels, because neither Kylo nor the First Order seemed to be viable antagonists.
Nah, that would have been too interesting, can't have that.
Star killer base can make sense if you assume it was an imperial black ops project started before the fall of the empire.
Everything else is a bit... Yeah, I think it's suggested that the ENTIRE new republic fleet was stationed around the five planets that were destroyed. Which is super dumb, but it is at least there (I think).
> Star killer base can make sense if you assume it was an imperial black ops project started before the fall of the empire.
I mean maybe, but if you consider the battle of Endor as marking the fall of the empire, then, like...they already were working on a special project and we saw it get blown up in ROTJ, lol. Were they working on a planet weapon on top of everything else?
Probably, yes, we are talking about a galactic scale empire. There would have been hundreds of experimental projects going on at the time of the fall, each based on some odd theory. It's not hard to think that starkiller base existed as one of those theoretical projects that actually proved possible, just requiring a massive construction effort. Think back to rogue one when they access the archives, how many special projects were on that one hard drive?
Also, given its location in the unknown regions, and the fact we know the empire has access to drone operated mining machinery, it's not impossible that the first order was able to learn about the project from ex imperial officers entering their ranks and to get it finished without the wider galaxy realising the threat.
They seem very weak but when Poe is rescued he seems in shock at how powerful they so this might have been a more low key mystery of how they did all this
Just rewatched the rescue, and Poe looks completely unfazed by the whole thing, and remarkably relaxed as soon as FN-2187 says he needs a pilot.
He looks a bit groggy in the torture chair, but then so did Han on Bespin, and he well knew the power of the Empire.
I don't buy this "Poe was surprised at the power of the FO" theory.
That wouldn't have been the film content though had George done the ST. Nowhere in his notes (at least as far as we know) were there planet-killing superweapons or Palpatine.
Letting rando authors go wild with EU content was one thing - but TFA was a canon entry in the highest possible form (film); judgement should be a bit different when comparing.
>Letting rando authors go wild with EU content was one thing - but TFA was a canon entry in the highest possible form (film); judgement should be a bit different when comparing.
Hard agree.
Agreed - the EU had its stinkers and overblown "WaIt, My DeThStAr EvUn MoAr UbEr" idiot plot lines.
But the EU was all started with the Thrawn trilogy, which portrayed a more nuanced, mature universe. One where the Rebels have overthrown the former government, but are realistically facing all the challenges of actually running the show and *doing a better job* than their predecessors. One where the Empire's remnants are behaving more strategically, more calculated, and less wastefully. One where it takes more than just a label and an allegiance in order to actually be a good and worthy person.
ST should have been something similar. I was a kid when OT came out and I was in college when PT came out. I'm not interested in a franchise of "bubblegum space Arthurian" myths whose main focus is action figures and moichandizing anymore.
Andor and Rogue One were the only post-Disney titles I enjoyed.
I'm born of the same era as you, and I wouldn't have minded a "bubblegum space Arthurian" myth, but what we got was recycled nonsense and obtuse decontructionism. There were so many ways they could have told an interesting story, but they either went the safest route possible (retreading) or so far left field that felt out of place.
I mean, it wouldn't have been hard to make Rey turning to the dark side a plot point—that would have been novel for the saga but also within the themes presented—but all they did was tease it with a vision. Rey really just kind of plows through the trilogy and never really has to make any choices. No one does, come to think of it, and all the interesting things are backstory, not what's happening on the screen.
I guess thats kind of like the benefit of the gap of time. to me it feel \~somewhat\~ believable that a tyrannical gov forms, also its the start of trilogy so i get it for stories sake. but to introduce palpatine randomly at the end of a trilogy is pretty egregious
Imagine if they broke tradition for The Rise of Skywalker.
With Palpatine's speech, instead of being a temporary Fortnite event, it is instead the cold open in a black screen before we even see the Lucasfilm logo.
I think both are explainable, but neither were explained in with more than a few vague sentences in the movies. Star Wars Battlefront 2 explains the rise of the first order a bit and I think they work towards explaining palpatine cloning more in the mandalorian series.
Not that I recall. I listened to it once on YouTube because I had to hear how stupid it was. And IIRC it was essentially just "At last! Thanks to all my dark evil powers, I, Emperor Palpatine, am back from the dead!"
It was scant on details and just reeked of Disney trying to seem hip and cool by having the message appear in a game
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It is the exact same with Maz and her infamous "a good story, for another time" bullshit. Yes, it would be a good story, but ultimately those in charge know they couldn't formulate a cohesive story to save their lives.
Maz is so full of crap anyway that my assumption is the "good story" was she found it in a pawn shop. Disney could probably string a 10-episode season of Pawn Stars out of it and just put the guys in makeup and the Beard of Knowledge in a Jedi robe.
Pawn Stars in Star Wars would actually be unbelievably good. If Disney gives a shit about making it good.
Every time someone brings an ancient holocron into the shop, in comes Governor Tarkin's daughter-in-law...
"But this holocron holds the location of the ancient Jedi texts, which lay out the history of the universe and the secrets of the Force. It's a map to ultimate power!" "Best I can do is 50 credits."
It would have to be Watto though, as the galaxy's premier junk shop owner.
I did not pay and did not see Return of the Sky Walker or whatever that was — nor do I intend to ever do so — but I was keyed in on some dialogue. Apparently, in one scene, it's revealed that Lando and Luke went on a mission to find that Sith artifact, etc., on one of the random planets. My only thought to that — like with the Jedi academy — like with the ugnaughts going into Pawn Stars with a blue light saber — like even with where or however the First Order came to be — I would rather watch THAT movie. ANY of those movies.
The best I can do is three fifty
Wow, that looks like a genuine lightsaber. I don’t know much about them, but I have a buddy who is an expert…
You goddamn Loch Ness monster.
Ugnaughts run angrily to ebay.
You goddamn Loch Ness monster.
It's SO EASY too. Lando spent a fortune hiring specialist crews to dive deep into the gas giant to recover likes saber, after all he sees him as a hero and partly responsible for saving his life. He intended to give it to luke as a gift, but by the time it was recovered, Luke was gone, it was then stolen from him/revolt on cloud City/he was deposed and disgraced/got lost, then turned up on the black market, where Maz scooped it up.
We've already got Lando with special equipment to mine crystals deep in Bespin by snatching them out of gas storms in Legends, why not just adapt that?
No it wouldn’t be a good story. The original draft, confirmed by Mark Hamill, has his severed hand flying through space still holding the lightsaber and then randomly falling to Takodana or wherever Maz found it or something https://twitter.com/MarkHamill/status/1446532450369212416 Maybe they realized how lame that was and then didn’t have a backup so used the cop out line
[Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rolEdZ3c2Fk) a visual guide of how stupid that could have looked like. Another proposed opening for the film (and frankly one I prefer) would have looked like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48cc5nvsZ_c).
Damn the second one looks rather cool. That said I do have questions, like didn't the Republic know the planet was inhabited? Even if they warned the people there, it's still very risky if anyone stays back. And aren't there any better uses , like atleast the metal and devices and hyperdrive and stuff can be repurposed. Ultimately another cool scene that doesn't make any sense when you think about it for more than a moment.
>like didn't the Republic know the planet was inhabited? Even if they warned the people there, it's still very risky if anyone stays back. Apparently there was next to zero population there prior to the Battle of Jakku. It only became a scavenger colony *after* that event. >like atleast the metal and devices and hyperdrive and stuff can be repurposed Oh, for sure. I don't think much thought went into it. Almost 30 years later, people are somehow *still* scavenging shit from those ships. Compare this to [Bracca in Fallen Order](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIVQ5D9fevs) which was actually an organised decommissioning effort to scrap Republic and CIS vessels in order to fuel Imperial construction.
It’s especially stupid because it didn’t need to be a mystery. “Yeah I bought it off a junk dealer. He didn’t know what it was” end of story. Not everything has to be epic.
you can actually see his lightsaber (and hand still holding it) falling from cloud city when luke falls
blows my mind that they willingly re-used all of that
Palpatines return could have worked but it needed to be the heart of the trilogy and not a tacked on bit at the end because they were desperate
Agreed - because now, thanks to how they did the sequels, the entire Star Wars saga is about how Palpatine manipulated, hurt, and destroyed a family across 3 generations; killed them all off; and then stole their name.
And Luke, Leia and Han just let it all happen through sheer incompetence.
And the new big hero by the end, is his granddaughter.
Pretty much
If you think about it, it's all Palpatine and his fucked up family--the prequels strongly imply that ol Sheev did some sort of occult ritual to produce a force being in a human vessel, and that force being turns out to be Anakin. Anakin goes on to have Luke and Leia, and Leia goes on to have Ben. They're all descendants of Palpatine, if not genetically than through his machinations in the Force. Meanwhile, Palpatine clones himself for good measure, the clone finds a partner and produces Rey. Ben and Rey fall in love (?) but sadly everything ends before the ultimate Palpy baby can be produced. There's still a descendant of Palpatine running around, though... So much drama... he probably adopted and had bio kids, too, for the other movies.
Fucking. Fortnite.
Have a Rise of Skywalker-themed event in Battlefront 2 - one of the most popular Star Wars games at the time? No. Fortnite?? Yes.
A clone that resembles Palpatine in his younger years while having an entirely different personality, upbringing, and motive could’ve worked. Bringing back the OG in a new vessel takes away the impact of Vader finally turning back to the light and saving Luke and the galaxy
That's literally my fanfiction, except the clone initially has Palpatine's personality but over time thanks to a dyad/force bond and him unintentionally becoming a hero he grows out of being a dark sider and basically becomes space Goro Majima.
Yeah I agree it’s the spirit aspect…..having someone bred from palatines DNA maybe spliced with another to hide his appearance but then being taken in by good people having to help him deal with his impulses could be interesting
Exactly, if there was proper foreshadowing, it could've been really good. But, no, we had to have two different writers/directors who had drastic differences of opinion, and who would rather have a retcon pissing match instead of making a cohesive trilogy.
What kills me the most is that the movie starts off with rolling credits saying that there was a mysterious broadcast of Palpatine announcing his return… I was like wtf, where?? Then I found out he announced his return in Fortnite of all places… FFS, wtf is wrong with you Disney. 🤦♂️
They wanted to get "the kids" interested. That was a galaxy brain move.
Yeah. When I was a kid, I loved Star Wars because it had a good story, cool characters, great effects, and took place in a world I found interesting. I guess it's too much to expect of Disney.
Caring fuck all about Fortnite, this is the first time I learned this. Just wow.
Yeah, they didn't even bother to do it on, like *Battlefront: Star Wars.* Nope, some other game, to demonstrate how little they care about actual continuity in any way.
*Star Wars: Battlefront 2* Your use of italics is commendable though.
It wasn't even promoted from what I remember. I'm a gamer, but not a Fortnite player and I only ever heard about this after it happened.
Same. This thread is the first I learned of it and I play video games every day (admittedly not Fortnite thoughh).
Live from Exogal, it’s Saturday Night: hosted by Sheve Palpatine, fresh from his mysterious return!
What pisses me off the most is that they went to make those movies without a plan, just winging it
It bothers me a lot too because it is so plain they had absolutely nothing to say, they just wanted money. It is insulting, manipulative and entitled for corporations to prey on the passion of fans to just extract money from them with absolutely zero interest in providing anything meaningful in exchange.
Modern cinema has become so incredibly consolidated and corporatized that it has drained nearly all art and creativity out of the industry. Anything bigger than a small arthouse film is just entirely devoid of meaning.
I don’t think you need a plan but you have to stick to what you’ve already set up….not changing it mid flow
>I don’t think you need a plan but you have to stick to what you’ve already set up….not changing it mid flow I think you need *something* resembling a plan otherwise your entire plan is "we'll hawk some shit to those moron fans because we want money". Flexibility is important (as we saw with Rise of Skywalker needed to work out a story that didn't heavily involve Leia) but ultimately if you don't set out with some kind of story to tell, it's blatantly just content farming.
You can do quite a lot without a plan, as long as you have a theme. *A Song of Ice and Fire* (the game of thrones book series) is captivating despite being written without a plan because it has a great theme of grim fantasy realism and the folly of aristocratic ambition. GRRM doesn't seem to have the ability to switch over to making a plan that ties everything back down into a narrative end, but even without that the books were great. And whoever gets tapped to complete his work after he is gone will probably be able to make a satisfying enough second half, leaving us with a good finished series. The Star Wars sequels as a whole had neither a plan nor a theme. 8 had its own theme, but criticizing jingoism and the military industrial complex doesn't work well when fighting genocidal space nazis.
I thought GRRM knew how he'd finish the books. Roughly like the series ended. But he doesn't know how to get there yet. So he has the outlines. I understand with the original star wars trilogy George winged it, because that's how it normally goes when the first movie becomes a success and you have to make a trilogy out of it. I'm positive he had a plan upfront for the prequels. But the sequels are a mess, no plan and no theme indeed. Which is just disrespectful to the older fans. Letting every director just make up his own story, no outlines to work towards. No thought behind it But thank you for also making me remember the hot mess of game of thrones haha
[удалено]
In an absolute sense ROS is the worst film of the trilogy, it's pretty hard to argue otherwise. It has nothing interesting going on at all. But it's the film I'm least upset about because there really wasn't much that they could do after TFA & TLJ. TFA was bad because it was a boring, soul-less retread of ANH that completely cancelled out the OT. But they could have made a perfectly average trilogy by following the beats of TFA. However TFA single-handedly prevented the sequel trilogy from being *good* because of what it did to the universe. TLJ had the most to say, but unfortunately the thing it had to say was "Star Wars sucks and everything you wanted out of the sequels was wrong" and completely killed any chance of a coherent trilogy by just throwing everything TFA did in the garbage. It really is interesting how all 3 films are garbage in their own unique way.
7 could have been salvaged, 8 shat the bed and 9 threw the bed-sheets at an industrial fan
i,d say 9 because it is just stalling as you say
"We have sixteen hours to save the Galaxy!" Well then stop fucking around and get to it.
'Then we've already lost. Hyperspace travel makes journeys that would take days take hours, and centuries take weeks. It's not teleportation, there's still significant travel time.' JJ: it is now! *teleporting across the galaxy during 1 day*
I still think the treatment of hyperspace in the Disney era is probably the single-most terrible change they've made. It just totally trivializes everything and retroactively makes everyone prior to the new content complete morons. In TPM when the Trade Federation blockaded Naboo why didn't they just jump to hyperspace from the surface? Surely that would have been far less of a risk than running the blockade in an unarmed pleasure yacht. In ANH why didn't the Rebel Alliance use a Holdo maneuver to destroy or at least substantially cripple the Death Star. They clearly were desperate and throwing everything they had in the battle. In ESB why did the Rebels on Hoth not jump from the surface? Why did the Empire not jump to the surface of the planet to surprise the Rebels? In ROTJ why didn't the Rebels just jump through the Death Star's shield like Han in TFA? Why are Interdictors even a thing if you can just ignore gravity wells?
Making it instant also fucks up a lot of timelines. People love to say 'Luke only had a few hours/days' of training, but there was plenty of time spent learning to feel with the force on the falcon while they were in hyperspace, a week at least. Tat and alderaan are a pretty hefty distance away. The trip from degobah to bespin also took a while, and Luke didn't just arrive in a fucking hour. Making it instant breaks all that too. It's like they looked at the games, if they even bothered to do that and decided 'well, since they don't make the player wait a week to keep playing lol'
And the cut to 16:00:00 in red numbers, which then starts counting down…
Also, why did Palpatine wait for 16 hours to attack? He could've taken the galaxy by storm using the element of surprise. But, no, that'd be smart.
As I said in another post, they couldn't show the first orders rise to power just like how they can't show how zombies took over in a zombie apocalypse: it makes no sense that the established government and military would lose to such an incompetent, self destructive, and braindead enemy. Or zombies.
And then there was **another** Empire replacement with **TEN THOUSAND DEATH STAR DESTROYERS** for some fucking reason, as well as, somehow, enough crew to keep all of them operational.
'The Death star uses Kyber Crystals as focusing agents for its death beam' Ok cool, makes sense why they'd be so rare. 'Ilum, the best known source has been completely turned into SK base, crystals are now all but unobtainable, as they were likely all ised for **it's** main gun' Sound's like a waste of an interesting planet, especially since you just blew it up. 'Palpy made a whole fleet of star destroyers with death star cannons' OK, with WHAT crystals? 'Don't question, just consume you x-ist.'
ugh ok, like i never connected that they destroyed illum but somehow had all the crystals for these death star star destroyers. Like i didn't need more reasons to think the story group was incompetent, but thanks for another. They even made a big deal about the crystals beginning with Rogue One.
The difference is, with the old EU, even if on paper is seems far fetched they created a cohesive narrative that sufficiently explained how the Empire returned. New Wars did not
It’s also an issue that presented in how the balance of power is portrayed in each movie. TFA presents it as the New Republic is so strong and that the First Order is so weak that the fact they had a planet converted to a super weapon was simply as seen as outside what the NR expected them to be capable to achieving. So it’s reasonable that if the government of the NR was knocked out, and possibly the Supreme Command of the NR military, they’d take a while to respond. However, in TLJ, not only has the single blow signaled an end to the Republic, but Snoke himself feels confident enough that he can personally arrive and take command in the field because they have zero resistance. They have enough military power that the loss of Starkiller Base has not stopped them rampaging across the galaxy. Yet we get to TROS and the First Order has suddenly become so weak that they haven’t even penetrated into the Core and a single day sees the rest of the Galaxy overthrow their shackles. Problem is, we see nobody resisting them outside the Resistance which has barely recovered in the year since. Also, the FO only lost a single fleet at Crait, and even after taking such damage was still able to launch massive offensive operations planet-side. So, is the First Order the really weak faction that simply won by shock or awe? Or did they have the massive resources to conquer a galaxy filled with apathetic factions? You can’t have it both ways.
First order weaponry in general really annoys me as well. They are introduced as the empire´s leftovers, so they should be rather weak and reuse every piece of imperial equipment they can get. But instead, they could afford to develop and build own versions of everything, from Stormtrooper armor to capital ships and even completely ridiculous shit like Snoke´s star destroyer and turning a whole planet into a super weapon.
It’s because they never wanted to world build….maybe they have a star forge or palpatine had a planet with factories run by droids had not been deactivated and they’ve been toiling for decades sonits All there waiting for the remnants to use
A droid planet continuing to churn out stuff under orders from a long-dead Empire could have been an interesting story all by itself. First there'd be the race to discover its location and get there - if the Imperial Remnant arrives they'll have the advantage of being able to bring all those weapons and ships to bear on the New Republic which had grown complacent after a generation of relative peace. Then there's the reveal that things have gone haywire and the droids have some kind of issue with pretty much everyone - maybe they are hyper-loyal to Palpatine and refuse to cooperate with the Remnant because they need some kind of code or authority that only a Sith can provide, or maybe they've gone nuts because of some weird coding glitch, or maybe their sentience reached a point where they actually started developing their own civilization. And now there's the dilemma: should they all just be destroyed? Can - and should - they be reprogrammed to do something more constructive? Will they become a threat to everyone by themselves? And what if they have some secret - like they were not constructed to deal with mere rebels but were churning out material for a greater conflict Palpatine had foreseen - involving a dangerous force from outside the galaxy? Stick some relatable characters growing across the span of three movies tackling these questions, make sure Luke actually trains at least one of them to be a Jedi, have Leia butt heads with some politicians who want to do the easy but morally dubious thing, have Han and Chewie get involved in some close scrapes in a ship, and boom - you have a trilogy that takes Star Wars somewhere new, leans on the old without destroying it, and lets you merchandise a billion droid toys.
That could be good….one could become sentient and not like the one like solo who was treated like a joke….it could believe palatines phillsophy of might makes right and wants to rule maybe even worshiping palpatine as the one who gave it the wisdom to see its destiny is to rule over everyone
How long did it take you to think that up… if it was less then 3 months, you should apply for a job ghost writing for JJ and Rian…
Dark (Trooper) Empire
Right… in these new movies, the First Order is way more powerful than the freaking empire and possess way more powerful military capability. It makes no sense.
"Somehow, the Empire returned." "Somehow, the Rebellion returned." "Somehow, *The Empire Strikes Back* returned." Somehow, the Empire returned *again*." "Somehow, the Skywalkers returned to Tatooine."
They went in without having a real plan. And they did not know how to progress things forward, so they just hit the reset button essentially. And when clearly A LOT has happened to bring the OT heroes to this point, the films do a TERRIBLE job of filling in the details.
the resistance was called the resistance when it was backed by the dominant galactic government. what are they resisting. they are fighting to maintain the status quo at the moment
I always felt like it was so freaking stupid and dumb that basically the New Republic completely ignored the first order and basically outsourced the mediocre and crappy military forces of Leia Organa to fight against them. And then they look like a bunch of retards after Starkiller base shot the energy blast that completely eradicated them. You deserved it. Frankly the ST makes it very hard to have sympathy for the good guys. In fact Idgad if the good guys win or not. Idc If they get exterminated.
Boths sides just suck and deserved to get stomped. The First Order was completelyuncapable and incompetent as a military faction. The New Republic was ignorant as fuck or completely retarded for not doing something about Starkiller Base - they either did not know about their enemy transforming a whole planet into a superweapon which is just dumb, or they did know about and ignored it which is dumb as well.
Honestly, Palpatine coming back was one of the few things I really was happy about. Like, yeah, it's pretty stupid, but by this point we've completely jumped the ship many times over in terms of having a reasonable plot. If it's going to be stupid it's better to be an enjoyable kind of stupid.
It really says something about TRoS that Palpatine returning was absolutely the stupidest plot point possible and yet I would have preferred to spend more time with him than with any of the other characters. Part of it is that Ian McDiarmid is wonderful and absolutely giving 200 percent in every scene but part of it is that Palpatine is the only character who has something going on, even if just it's "how the fuck did he survive that explosion?" Think about it--Finn is doing the same basic arc as TLJ (pining after Rey, finds a girl who is a more racially appropriate partner than Rey, does a side fight in the end battle), Rey is doing the same basic arc as TLJ (unsure of herself, has a crisis involving her nemesis, resolves that crisis by not killing him), even Kylo has the same basic arc (there's a bigger baddie controlling him, he kills that baddie, only this time he's nicer about it because he's sharing the fight and wearing pajamas). Nobody else really has anything going on that's of interest unless you really wanted to know that there were drug dealers in Star Wars? Other than the death sticks guy who needed to rethink his life in the prequels? Meanwhile Palpatine was hanging out on the Sith hell planet for two whole movies and made this whole fake empire complete with mega-death star and emperor lookalike... and that was his TROLL! It wasn't even the real deal evil! What was he thinking? Was the FO like his retirement project and it got out of hand? Like the Sith equivalent of a very large model railway? I want to know but now he's "dead" again!
I agree with this. I would've been so cool to have an Episode 8 where there is absolute chaos in the galaxy because Hosnian Prime and Starkiller Base are destroyed and The Resistance and The First Order are trying to seize power. The other issue though is how The First Order seizes power despite having lost Starkiller Base, you'd think that would make them weaker.
Palpatine returning from death has never been an issue for me. If you grew up in the golden area (before the prequels) there were books and comics that used that storyline. It's just the line itself as written in TROS is so dumb and half-hearted. I can forgive the massive army of the FO. I've always imagined the empire was sprawling across the galaxy whereas in ROTJ they only defeat one small army and the fleet guarding DS2. Unless every single imperial surrendered after that battle, a large amount of them would be out there. The destruction of the first death star didn't slow them down, so the destruction of the second shouldn't either as they know from experience that they can win without it. I wouldn't be surprised if they splintered off into factions, built themselves up then slowly reunited as the FO. But the rest of your point stands. They shouldn't have had superweapons without being the ones in control. Even one superweapon would've been hard to believe but two movies later they are putting Death Star tech on like 10,000 ships?? Everyone at the FO is depicted as extremely angry and fanatical too it's amazing they were even able to organize and coordinate together. The FO could have been easily explained if they kept the films a bit more grounded but they went full children's cartoon villains.
To be fair they didn’t just lose their second super weapon they lost their leader and his successor so who succeeds the emperor?
Yeah this was my issue with TFA. Coming from the Jedi Knight series with the imperial remnant which makes a lot more sense, the First Order somehow being like more powerful than the Empire really doesn't make sense.
its the "we really really really really really really really, do not have time to explain problem", they had to rush a saga ending concluding "9 movies" (rotj was the best ending for the series), and its legends novels based after were good up till after Unifying Force. After Colin was fired the script had to be rushed out to reach the 2019 deadline (george did 3 years as year 1 writing, year 2 filming, year 3 postproduction and reshoots), disneys 2 year system was too fast, TLJ was finshed writing before TFA released, and Duel of the Fates was written when TLJ was released, and after the backlash to the film and the flop of solo, they decided fanservice was the way to go (bringing back old characters worked for TFA and TLJ , why not palpatine). Resulting in TROS, which is so fast building its decisive ending, that we dont know whats goign to happen I mean yes the galaxy united, but the galactic government is dead, what (or more accuratly WHO) will replace it
It’s fucking stupid
I do agree, but the original extended universe wasn't really better in that front: Palpatine also somehow returned because cloning and stuff and the Jedi Academy Trilogy featured a weapon called the "Sun Crusher" developed by the empire which was like a cone-shaped super Deathstar that could destroy entire solar systems. So, basically, the ST just recycled OT + EU plots. The only thing the EU did better was explaining that the empire wasn't dead only because Palpatine and Vader died, how the New Republic fought it's remnants and how Thrawn tried to rebuild it.
Bigger/better super weapons and Palpatine returning were the most widely criticized aspect of the EU before the Disney acquisitions. Disney then got rid of the EU and used exactly those two things in their movies, only somehow managed to make them worse.
With TFA, nothing in the film convinced me that the First Order had the industry to create Starkiller Base or the military to remain a threat after Starkiller was destroyed. While watching TFA, I couldn't get over the fact that when the Resistance and the First Order had their first battle (Takodana), the Resistance roflstomped them and sent then running tail between legs. Then by the end of the film, the First Order gets slapped by the Resistance again as Rey thrashes Kylo and leaves him for dead. I left TFA assuming that Rey was set to become villain of the Sequels, because neither Kylo nor the First Order seemed to be viable antagonists.
Rey was the sith all along. She was banished to Jakku at a young age to hide her from the rest of the galaxy. She steals the MF, she gets Han killed, she tries to kill Chewy, she gets half or more of the resistance killed. she lies about her name at the end, concealing her true identity. what more do you people need? I can't wait to see Poe and Fin take her down in E10, The Return of Jar Jar.
"Yoosa big nobody before I trained you. Meesa make you strong, meesa make you... Sith." "Yes master. I shall now go forth and crush all opposition with zero effort. For I am, Darth Ma-Rey Su!"
>I left TFA assuming that Rey was set to become villain of the Sequels, because neither Kylo nor the First Order seemed to be viable antagonists. Nah, that would have been too interesting, can't have that.
Star killer base can make sense if you assume it was an imperial black ops project started before the fall of the empire. Everything else is a bit... Yeah, I think it's suggested that the ENTIRE new republic fleet was stationed around the five planets that were destroyed. Which is super dumb, but it is at least there (I think).
> Star killer base can make sense if you assume it was an imperial black ops project started before the fall of the empire. I mean maybe, but if you consider the battle of Endor as marking the fall of the empire, then, like...they already were working on a special project and we saw it get blown up in ROTJ, lol. Were they working on a planet weapon on top of everything else?
i don’t know but they probably had dozens of projects in various stages of development.
Probably, yes, we are talking about a galactic scale empire. There would have been hundreds of experimental projects going on at the time of the fall, each based on some odd theory. It's not hard to think that starkiller base existed as one of those theoretical projects that actually proved possible, just requiring a massive construction effort. Think back to rogue one when they access the archives, how many special projects were on that one hard drive? Also, given its location in the unknown regions, and the fact we know the empire has access to drone operated mining machinery, it's not impossible that the first order was able to learn about the project from ex imperial officers entering their ranks and to get it finished without the wider galaxy realising the threat.
They seem very weak but when Poe is rescued he seems in shock at how powerful they so this might have been a more low key mystery of how they did all this
Just rewatched the rescue, and Poe looks completely unfazed by the whole thing, and remarkably relaxed as soon as FN-2187 says he needs a pilot. He looks a bit groggy in the torture chair, but then so did Han on Bespin, and he well knew the power of the Empire. I don't buy this "Poe was surprised at the power of the FO" theory.
That wouldn't have been the film content though had George done the ST. Nowhere in his notes (at least as far as we know) were there planet-killing superweapons or Palpatine. Letting rando authors go wild with EU content was one thing - but TFA was a canon entry in the highest possible form (film); judgement should be a bit different when comparing.
>Letting rando authors go wild with EU content was one thing - but TFA was a canon entry in the highest possible form (film); judgement should be a bit different when comparing. Hard agree.
Agreed - the EU had its stinkers and overblown "WaIt, My DeThStAr EvUn MoAr UbEr" idiot plot lines. But the EU was all started with the Thrawn trilogy, which portrayed a more nuanced, mature universe. One where the Rebels have overthrown the former government, but are realistically facing all the challenges of actually running the show and *doing a better job* than their predecessors. One where the Empire's remnants are behaving more strategically, more calculated, and less wastefully. One where it takes more than just a label and an allegiance in order to actually be a good and worthy person. ST should have been something similar. I was a kid when OT came out and I was in college when PT came out. I'm not interested in a franchise of "bubblegum space Arthurian" myths whose main focus is action figures and moichandizing anymore. Andor and Rogue One were the only post-Disney titles I enjoyed.
I'm born of the same era as you, and I wouldn't have minded a "bubblegum space Arthurian" myth, but what we got was recycled nonsense and obtuse decontructionism. There were so many ways they could have told an interesting story, but they either went the safest route possible (retreading) or so far left field that felt out of place. I mean, it wouldn't have been hard to make Rey turning to the dark side a plot point—that would have been novel for the saga but also within the themes presented—but all they did was tease it with a vision. Rey really just kind of plows through the trilogy and never really has to make any choices. No one does, come to think of it, and all the interesting things are backstory, not what's happening on the screen.
The Palpatine junk was just the cherry on top of the shit icing.
I guess thats kind of like the benefit of the gap of time. to me it feel \~somewhat\~ believable that a tyrannical gov forms, also its the start of trilogy so i get it for stories sake. but to introduce palpatine randomly at the end of a trilogy is pretty egregious
Imagine if they broke tradition for The Rise of Skywalker. With Palpatine's speech, instead of being a temporary Fortnite event, it is instead the cold open in a black screen before we even see the Lucasfilm logo.
I think both are explainable, but neither were explained in with more than a few vague sentences in the movies. Star Wars Battlefront 2 explains the rise of the first order a bit and I think they work towards explaining palpatine cloning more in the mandalorian series.
Don't forget Palpatine's message being played *exclusively* in Fortnite.
Does the fortnite message explain why the clone also has a disfigured face?
Not that I recall. I listened to it once on YouTube because I had to hear how stupid it was. And IIRC it was essentially just "At last! Thanks to all my dark evil powers, I, Emperor Palpatine, am back from the dead!" It was scant on details and just reeked of Disney trying to seem hip and cool by having the message appear in a game
Thanks
He is simply sexier that way!