Putting aside the Expanded Universe, which George Lucas repeatedly said wasn't canon, the ending of Star Wars Return of the Jedi is extremely clear cut. The only two sith in the galaxy are dead. The Empire, we can see has been overthrown as our heroes celebrate and we even see the crowds of cheering people on the streets of Coruscant. However, Disney is making it very clear that not only is this not the case, but, in 30 years the rebel alliance has completely failed to achieve any kind of gains. It has not retaken Coruscant, it has not formed the New Republic and apparently is actually staring defeat in the face from whats been gleaned so far.
Firstly, its a clear and shameless retcon of the ending of a great trilogy to milk it and make more films. It also shatters my suspension of disbelief since a war lasting thirty years is just dumb
Secondly, even the expanded universe makes it clear that after five years that the rebels have most of the galaxy and formed the New Republic on Coruscant. They WON the Galactic Civil War and the remaining Imperial Remnants though they repeatedly constitute a mortal threat to the nascent New Republic the power balance definitely shifts. Remember, the rebels ultimate goal is to restore the Republic and Jedi Order; they would not want to remain perpetually as rebels because they see the Empire as illegitimate. And it after just 20 years, the Imperial Remnant is basically contained to a small part of the now Republic held galaxy.
Finally, it indicates that Disney is absolutely obsessed with making these films as much like the original trilogy as possible. Same cast, same setting, everything. They do not want to try anything new and this is a bad thing for any film franchise to do. If even a mild thing like, progressing the plot after the defeat of the Emperor is so unthinkable to them because then we wouldn't have BIG scary empire versus rebels. Even though games and stories like Knights and The Old Republic have shown that you can tell an excellent Star Wars tale without being totally hidebound to the setup of the original film. In TOR both factions are well matched in power for example as they 're locked in a mortal struggle of light versus darkness.
Firstly, its a clear and shameless retcon of the ending of a great trilogy to milk it and make more films. It also shatters my suspension of disbelief since a war lasting thirty years is just dumb
Secondly, even the expanded universe makes it clear that after five years that the rebels have most of the galaxy and formed the New Republic on Coruscant. They WON the Galactic Civil War and the remaining Imperial Remnants though they repeatedly constitute a mortal threat to the nascent New Republic the power balance definitely shifts. Remember, the rebels ultimate goal is to restore the Republic and Jedi Order; they would not want to remain perpetually as rebels because they see the Empire as illegitimate. And it after just 20 years, the Imperial Remnant is basically contained to a small part of the now Republic held galaxy.
How do you know that the remaining Imperials aren't exactly what you've described? The movies aren't out yet, and it's hard to gleam anything from the trailers.
Finally, it indicates that Disney is absolutely obsessed with making these films as much like the original trilogy as possible. Same cast, same setting, everything. They do not want to try anything new and this is a bad thing for any film franchise to do. If even a mild thing like, progressing the plot after the defeat of the Emperor is so unthinkable to them because then we wouldn't have BIG scary empire versus rebels. Even though games and stories like Knights and The Old Republic have shown that you can tell an excellent Star Wars tale without being totally hidebound to the setup of the original film. In TOR both factions are well matched in power for example as they 're locked in a mortal struggle of light versus darkness.
The original trilogy was the gak.
TOR was great for gamers. But for the general public? They want to see Mother fething Han in the Mother fething Falcon. Get over it.
I'd at least give the first new film a chance. Maybe JJ Abrams will surprise you.
Also, I'd recommend taking Star Wars with a grain of salt and good humor. The movies have always been first and foremost geared towards children and the selling of toys...not exactly a political science class (although Lucas tried to make it one with Episodes 1 - 3).
There were only people shown celebrating in the streets of Coruscant in the Special Edition versions of the film.
The EU having the Empire be dismantled in 5 years was always one of the more silly concepts and was only possible because they continued to insist that the Moffs would be too busy fighting among themselves and that no one would come around that is that strong.
The Battle of Endor, may have eliminated the Emperor, Vader and the Grand Admiral. Most of the Fleet present, which was only one fleet out of several, was still intact and had done massive damage to the rebels before presumably withdrawing to regroup in the face of the defeat.
With the a mount of loss that the Rebel Fleet suffered, it wouldn't be too hard to believe that they would then have to go on the defensive suddenly. You have to think that for every one person that joined the Rebellion there were still hundred loyal to the Empire and willing to serve. Several Empires through out history have lost an Emperor and not completely collapsed with in 5 years.
So ultimately the Empire would have been able to replace loses to their forces much faster than the Rebellion, who needed donations and secret shipyards to create their Fleet.
And as pointed out by others there are several cases of Wars lasting longer than 30 years.
Secondly, even the expanded universe makes it clear that after five years that the rebels have most of the galaxy and formed the New Republic on Coruscant. They WON the Galactic Civil War and the remaining Imperial Remnants though they repeatedly constitute a mortal threat to the nascent New Republic the power balance definitely shifts. Remember, the rebels ultimate goal is to restore the Republic and Jedi Order; they would not want to remain perpetually as rebels because they see the Empire as illegitimate. And it after just 20 years, the Imperial Remnant is basically contained to a small part of the now Republic held galaxy.
Look at what happens in real life when the rebels "win". I'm thinking Libya and Egypt here. The first is anarchy and the second's democratically elected president was overthrown by the military after a very short period.
The Post-Imperial period in Star Wars is potentially a very interesting universe to explore.
I could just about accept that they were still fighting the Empire after 30 years. With some shunting of time you could just about explain that in the EU. Which is still a stretch.
What I could not accept was the idea and they have said that they have not formed the New Republic or any kind of government. Plus, the rebels goal is to restore the old order of the Republic. I mean what? Even the American rebels formed the Continental Congress whilst they were rebelling.
The hundred Years war was a series of conflicts and did not last 100 years. The thirty years war was an exceptional case and again was a series of separate conflicts. At any rate, you need to remember that this is a rebellion and one in which we actually see the good guys win.
Putting aside the Expanded Universe, which George Lucas repeatedly said wasn't canon, the ending of Star Wars Return of the Jedi is extremely clear cut. The only two sith in the galaxy are dead. The Empire, we can see has been overthrown as our heroes celebrate and we even see the crowds of cheering people on the streets of Coruscant. However, Disney is making it very clear that not only is this not the case, but, in 30 years the rebel alliance has completely failed to achieve any kind of gains. It has not retaken Coruscant, it has not formed the New Republic and apparently is actually staring defeat in the face from whats been gleaned so far.
Firstly, its a clear and shameless retcon of the ending of a great trilogy to milk it and make more films. It also shatters my suspension of disbelief since a war lasting thirty years is just dumb
Secondly, even the expanded universe makes it clear that after five years that the rebels have most of the galaxy and formed the New Republic on Coruscant. They WON the Galactic Civil War and the remaining Imperial Remnants though they repeatedly constitute a mortal threat to the nascent New Republic the power balance definitely shifts. Remember, the rebels ultimate goal is to restore the Republic and Jedi Order; they would not want to remain perpetually as rebels because they see the Empire as illegitimate. And it after just 20 years, the Imperial Remnant is basically contained to a small part of the now Republic held galaxy.
Finally, it indicates that Disney is absolutely obsessed with making these films as much like the original trilogy as possible. Same cast, same setting, everything. They do not want to try anything new and this is a bad thing for any film franchise to do. If even a mild thing like, progressing the plot after the defeat of the Emperor is so unthinkable to them because then we wouldn't have BIG scary empire versus rebels. Even though games and stories like Knights and The Old Republic have shown that you can tell an excellent Star Wars tale without being totally hidebound to the setup of the original film. In TOR both factions are well matched in power for example as they 're locked in a mortal struggle of light versus darkness.
I just saw the trailer. Don't make me stop this car and throw you off a cliff!
They had the Alliance Council, you know the governing body of the Alliance.
The issue is that with out a significant power base you can't form a Government like the New Republic, your Army and Navy is is tatters after a very costly but ultimately successful assault. But the Empire is still out there, they have more equipment, more men and more worlds. You have little to nothing. There won't be a place for a Government. Like wise Imperial Retaliation for the killing of the Emperor would likely be swift and devastating to anyone suspected of aiding the Rebellion.
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: There were only people shown celebrating in the streets of Coruscant in the Special Edition versions of the film.
The EU having the Empire be dismantled in 5 years was always one of the more silly concepts and was only possible because they continued to insist that the Moffs would be too busy fighting among themselves and that no one would come around that is that strong.
The Battle of Endor, may have eliminated the Emperor, Vader and the Grand Admiral. Most of the Fleet present, which was only one fleet out of several, was still intact and had done massive damage to the rebels before presumably withdrawing to regroup in the face of the defeat.
With the a mount of loss that the Rebel Fleet suffered, it wouldn't be too hard to believe that they would then have to go on the defensive suddenly. You have to think that for every one person that joined the Rebellion there were still hundred loyal to the Empire and willing to serve. Several Empires through out history have lost an Emperor and not completely collapsed with in 5 years.
So ultimately the Empire would have been able to replace loses to their forces much faster than the Rebellion, who needed donations and secret shipyards to create their Fleet.
And as pointed out by others there are several cases of Wars lasting longer than 30 years.
You re forgetting a big point.
The whole reason the Empire existed wasn't because of an ideology like Communism or Fascism. It existed to serve the will of the Sith. Once both of the Sith were dead then the Empire naturally imploded in a similar way to the Soviet Union once its unifying force (Communism) was gone. Remember, its a civil war between light and darkness not a mortal struggle between two nation states like it is in The Old Reoublic video game qwhere as you say, even without the Emperor that Sith Empire has a massive incentive to keep on fighting. The Empire in the films was never like that. Thrawn makes this clear to Pelleon when he discusses the battle of endor and the emperors death..
Now, you could just explain this away, as I suspect will be the case, by saying that more Sith show up. But there is nothing in the films to suggest that there were ever more than two Sith, in fact prequel makes clear only ever two Sith "a master and an apprentice".
Thing is, though, what did the Rebels actually win in RotJ? Luke himself certainly triumphed over Vader, and Jedi beat the Sith (or at least they think they did. However, there are still millions of people across the galaxy that are Force sensitive, and the Dark Side itself hasn't been eradicated, so there is a high probability of new Dark Side Force Users emerging), but the Rebel Alliance captured one small moon and had a knees-up with the Teddies. In return for taking out the Death Star (something the Empire has recovered from before), they have lost a significant proportion of their fleet.
Yes, the montage at the end of RotJ shows plenty of celebration, but how long will that last once legions of Stormtroopers arrive to put down the 'protests'? There will be a power vacuum for a while, but plenty of high ranking Imperial officials or Commanders to fill it. Meanwhile, the Rebels still have only a fraction of the military power and even less than that in territory compared to the might of the Empire. They are not in a good place, militarily.
None of which undermines the plot/message/conclusion of the OT. Despite the name, the war was only a backdrop for Luke's struggle with his father, who he ultimately ends up beating and redeeming, bringing that to an end. Now, if at any point in these films they bring Vader back as anything more than the Good 'ghost' he became, then that would undermine the OT (not to mention provoke enough nerdrage to punch a new whole in the ozone layer )
As for the length of the war, we've had wars longer than that on one planet between two nations, a conflict across thousands of worlds is of course going to take longer!
I'm all for digging into the the Star Wars universe's political landscape and critiquing the movie, but we have so little to go on. Seems a little preemptive to be casting judgement.
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: They had the Alliance Council, you know the governing body of the Alliance.
The issue is that with out a significant power base you can't form a Government like the New Republic, your Army and Navy is is tatters after a very costly but ultimately successful assault. But the Empire is still out there, they have more equipment, more men and more worlds. You have little to nothing. There won't be a place for a Government. Like wise Imperial Retaliation for the killing of the Emperor would likely be swift and devastating to anyone suspected of aiding the Rebellion.
Technically, they actually had worlds like Mon Calamari before the battle of Endor and other places had also similarly revolted. But, again, defeating the Emperor and destroying the bulk of the Imperial navy at Endor was a crippling blow against the Empire. Surely that should be taken into account when you're advancing the setting by 30 years. Why would the rebels not have things more in order?
Paradigm wrote: Thing is, though, what did the Rebels actually win in RotJ? Luke himself certainly triumphed over Vader, and Jedi beat the Sith (or at least they think they did.
Of course they won!
Just watch this scene that didn't make it into RotJ!
Paradigm wrote: Thing is, though, what did the Rebels actually win in RotJ? Luke himself certainly triumphed over Vader, and Jedi beat the Sith (or at least they think they did. However, there are still millions of people across the galaxy that are Force sensitive, and the Dark Side itself hasn't been eradicated, so there is a high probability of new Dark Side Force Users emerging), but the Rebel Alliance captured one small moon and had a knees-up with the Teddies. In return for taking out the Death Star (something the Empire has recovered from before), they have lost a significant proportion of their fleet.
Yes, the montage at the end of RotJ shows plenty of celebration, but how long will that last once legions of Stormtroopers arrive to put down the 'protests'? There will be a power vacuum for a while, but plenty of high ranking Imperial officials or Commanders to fill it. Meanwhile, the Rebels still have only a fraction of the military power and even less than that in territory compared to the might of the Empire. They are not in a good place, militarily.
None of which undermines the plot/message/conclusion of the OT. Despite the name, the war was only a backdrop for Luke's struggle with his father, who he ultimately ends up beating and redeeming, bringing that to an end. Now, if at any point in these films they bring Vader back as anything more than the Good 'ghost' he became, then that would undermine the OT (not to mention provoke enough nerdrage to punch a new whole in the ozone layer )
As for the length of the war, we've had wars longer than that on one planet between two nations, a conflict across thousands of worlds is of course going to take longer!
Unlike in games like The Old Republic there were only ever two Sith. The death of both of these left the Empire leaderless and without purpose. You could also say that the hold of the dark side on the galaxy and peoples minds faded into nothing.
We also see major rebellions on Coruscant. This is the capital world of the galaxy. Big deal.
In the scene you actually see the Stormtroopers being carried around by the protestors. Made pretty explicit that the army is powerless to do anything about it.
Its actually extremely unbelievable to think the Rebellion would have been able to assert control over the galaxy after the emperor was dead. The Empire didn't just dissolve when he died, and even if they did its a matter of setting up infrastructure.
The Empire has obviously, and very realistically, continued to exist under the Moffs. Someone has probably also established himself as Emperor. Meanwhile, the Empire's loosened grip has allowed the reemergence of force wielders who were suffocated under its oppressive policies.
The Star Wars Glaxey is huge. Millions of planets. Its really shocking the Clone Wars were as short as they were. Something on that scale should have lasted hundreds of years.
Paradigm wrote: Thing is, though, what did the Rebels actually win in RotJ? Luke himself certainly triumphed over Vader, and Jedi beat the Sith (or at least they think they did.
Of course they won!
Just watch this scene that didn't make it into RotJ!
Again, the Empire is not a nation state. It is an entity purely made to serve the Sith. You killed the only Sith (and yes, in the films it was made clear there were only two sith) then they have literally nobody to serve and no reason to exist.
Its like saying that the Soviet Union had millions of troops and a vast amount of territory. It doesn't matter.
The Empire came about because the Core Worlds were worried about the power of private enterprise (the Confederation powers) having too much freedom in the Outer Rim.
Grey Templar wrote: Its actually extremely unbelievable to think the Rebellion would have been able to assert control over the galaxy after the emperor was dead. The Empire didn't just dissolve when he died, and even if they did its a matter of setting up infrastructure.
The Empire has obviously, and very realistically, continued to exist under the Moffs. Someone has probably also established himself as Emperor. Meanwhile, the Empire's loosened grip has allowed the reemergence of force wielders who were suffocated under its oppressive policies.
The Star Wars Glaxey is huge. Millions of planets. Its really shocking the Clone Wars were as short as they were. Something on that scale should have lasted hundreds of years.
Yeah, for comparison, the Horus Heresy lasted 7 years. And that's with warp travel shenanigans.
The Empire came about because the Core Worlds were worried about the power of private enterprise (the Confederation powers) having too much freedom in the Outer Rim.
Through the manipulation of the Sith Darth Palpatine who used the fear and power of the dark side to pervert the republic into what it had sought to oppose (the Sith Empire reborn) for thousands of years.
The seperatists had been gone for more than 15 years by the time of the rebellion. By then, the Empire was clearly a brutal police state and one where humans and aliens alike were banding together to overthrow it and restore the freedom of the Old Republic.
Totalwar1402 wrote: Again, the Empire is not a nation state. It is an entity purely made to serve the Sith. You killed the only Sith (and yes, in the films it was made clear there were only two sith) then they have literally nobody to serve and no reason to exist.
Its like saying that the Soviet Union had millions of troops and a vast amount of territory. It doesn't matter.
Do you have a source for this information outside of the no-longer-canon EU?
Totalwar1402 wrote: We also see major rebellions on Coruscant. This is the capital world of the galaxy. Big deal.
In the scene you actually see the Stormtroopers being carried around by the protestors. Made pretty explicit that the army is powerless to do anything about it.
Powerless at that moment. You can interpret the scene however you like, but "and then after the camera cuts away the stormtroopers arrive and restore order" is entirely consistent with what we see on-screen.
Besides, the EU was a steaming pile of crap that needed to be tossed. Doesn't matter there were some Crunch bars in it, it all needed to go.
A nation state means that people within it have a common identity and that the state exists to represent those people. The EMpire is an amalgamation of millions of worlds with vastly different cultures and aliens who used to be part of a federal government. It is an Empire which exists to serve the personal designs of the Sith Emperor. For these reasons its not a nation state.
Now in TOR, this is different. The Sith are the humans and purebloods who fled Korriban from the republic. They formed a state on Dromund Kass and have a strong identity which causes them to oppose the Republic. Many Imperials earnestly believe that the republic wants to exterminate their race and that the Sith represent the only chance of survival. Neccesary evil as it were. The game represents this quite neatly by having all Imperials speak with a Briitish accent (which is referred specifically as an Imperial accent multiple times in the game) and the people of the republic are all American. Its a clever twist.
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: There were only people shown celebrating in the streets of Coruscant in the Special Edition versions of the film.
The EU having the Empire be dismantled in 5 years was always one of the more silly concepts and was only possible because they continued to insist that the Moffs would be too busy fighting among themselves and that no one would come around that is that strong.
The Battle of Endor, may have eliminated the Emperor, Vader and the Grand Admiral. Most of the Fleet present, which was only one fleet out of several, was still intact and had done massive damage to the rebels before presumably withdrawing to regroup in the face of the defeat.
With the a mount of loss that the Rebel Fleet suffered, it wouldn't be too hard to believe that they would then have to go on the defensive suddenly. You have to think that for every one person that joined the Rebellion there were still hundred loyal to the Empire and willing to serve. Several Empires through out history have lost an Emperor and not completely collapsed with in 5 years.
So ultimately the Empire would have been able to replace loses to their forces much faster than the Rebellion, who needed donations and secret shipyards to create their Fleet.
And as pointed out by others there are several cases of Wars lasting longer than 30 years.
You re forgetting a big point.
The whole reason the Empire existed wasn't because of an ideology like Communism or Fascism. It existed to serve the will of the Sith. Once both of the Sith were dead then the Empire naturally imploded in a similar way to the Soviet Union once its unifying force (Communism) was gone. Remember, its a civil war between light and darkness not a mortal struggle between two nation states like it is in The Old Reoublic video game qwhere as you say, even without the Emperor that Sith Empire has a massive incentive to keep on fighting. The Empire in the films was never like that. Thrawn makes this clear to Pelleon when he discusses the battle of endor and the emperors death..
Now, you could just explain this away, as I suspect will be the case, by saying that more Sith show up. But there is nothing in the films to suggest that there were ever more than two Sith, in fact prequel makes clear only ever two Sith "a master and an apprentice".
Except the vast majority of the Empire's citizens and Command Staff have no idea that they are a Sith Empire. Remember that Vader being a force user is refereed to as the last of a that ancient religion. The people believe that the Emperor is the man that led them through the Clone Wars and keeps them safe, provides jobs. Its not as simple as you think. The Soviet Union Collapsed because it ran out of money, and then they ultimately gave up communism, it wasn't because they abandoned it.
Also what Thrawn said to Palleon is ultimately irrelevent in the scheme of things as that is no longer canon, and was also a way for them to try and justify the collapse of the Empire from an in universe perspective.
Totalwar1402 wrote:
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: They had the Alliance Council, you know the governing body of the Alliance.
The issue is that with out a significant power base you can't form a Government like the New Republic, your Army and Navy is is tatters after a very costly but ultimately successful assault. But the Empire is still out there, they have more equipment, more men and more worlds. You have little to nothing. There won't be a place for a Government. Like wise Imperial Retaliation for the killing of the Emperor would likely be swift and devastating to anyone suspected of aiding the Rebellion.
Technically, they actually had worlds like Mon Calamari before the battle of Endor and other places had also similarly revolted. But, again, defeating the Emperor and destroying the bulk of the Imperial navy at Endor was a crippling blow against the Empire. Surely that should be taken into account when you're advancing the setting by 30 years. Why would the rebels not have things more in order?
The Bulk of the Imperial Fleet wasn't present at the Battle of Endor, there were Millions of Imperial Ships at the height of their power. If the bulk of that was present at Endor the Rebel Fleet would have been utterly annihilated and not all of the Imperial Fleet at Endor was destroyed, most of it fled after the battle. Anyway even if the "bulk" was lost, they would still massively out number the Rebel Fleet. Rebel worlds like Dac (The Mon Calamari Homeworld) would have been purged in retaliation for the Emperor's death. Examples would have been made and fear truly would have keep them inline for the time being.
Totalwar1402 wrote: [But, again, defeating the Emperor and destroying the bulk of the Imperial navy at Endor was a crippling blow against the Empire. Surely that should be taken into account when you're advancing the setting by 30 years. Why would the rebels not have things more in order?
The Imperial Navy was certainly more than a few dozen ships? If anything the entire Rebel Fleet fought two or three battlegroups - they inflicted big and expensive losses on the Empire but also took big losses themself, losses that would be much harder to replace for a bunch of rebels with no access to big shipyards.
Though the Thrawn trilogy does say something about the losses too. Serving on Vader's flagship, the Executor, was a fast track for promotion. A disproportionate amount of the best and brightest junior officers in the Imperial Navy went down with that ship. Pellaeon regretted some of that himself in the trilogy, looking at himself (grey hair and moustache) taking reports from eager shiny-eyed twenty-something old ensigns. In the old days (he thought to himself) such youngsters would never have been on the bridge crew of an Imperial Star Destroyer. The loss of ships wasn't the issue as much as the loss of a large amount of the best up-and-coming officers the Empire had enlisted.
The Empire came about because the Core Worlds were worried about the power of private enterprise (the Confederation powers) having too much freedom in the Outer Rim.
Through the manipulation of the Sith Darth Palpatine who used the fear and power of the dark side to pervert the republic into what it had sought to oppose (the Sith Empire reborn) for thousands of years.
The seperatists had been gone for more than 15 years by the time of the rebellion. By then, the Empire was clearly a brutal police state and one where humans and aliens alike were banding together to overthrow it and restore the freedom of the Old Republic.
So your explanation doesn't make any sense.
It makes perfect sense. The Senate was only dissolved during ANH, explicitly thanks to the construction of the Death Star.
Or did you really think one guy managed to change everything about the whole galaxy in about 20 years?
Dismissing the EU canon means you can only rely on the films as a source. That ending is absolutely clear that the EMpire has fallen. Robot chicken parodied this BECAUSE that's the accepted ending.
My point is that Disney changing that to make money sucks and they're going about it in a ridiculous manner by saying that the Empire is still going strong after 30 years.
The brutality of the Empire would also vary world to world and Commander to commander. The EU often makes the Imperials into your generic saturday morning cartoon villains because they want you to hate the Empire, and want you to support the Rebellion.
Both sides are the villains and neither side are, from a certain point of view...
The Empire came about because the Core Worlds were worried about the power of private enterprise (the Confederation powers) having too much freedom in the Outer Rim.
Through the manipulation of the Sith Darth Palpatine who used the fear and power of the dark side to pervert the republic into what it had sought to oppose (the Sith Empire reborn) for thousands of years.
The seperatists had been gone for more than 15 years by the time of the rebellion. By then, the Empire was clearly a brutal police state and one where humans and aliens alike were banding together to overthrow it and restore the freedom of the Old Republic.
So your explanation doesn't make any sense.
It makes perfect sense. The Senate was only dissolved during ANH, explicitly thanks to the construction of the Death Star.
Or did you really think one guy managed to change everything about the whole galaxy in about 20 years?
The Sith and the whole Light Side versus Dark Side is a central part of Star Wars. Beating the Sith is a big deal.
The Empire came about because the Core Worlds were worried about the power of private enterprise (the Confederation powers) having too much freedom in the Outer Rim.
Through the manipulation of the Sith Darth Palpatine who used the fear and power of the dark side to pervert the republic into what it had sought to oppose (the Sith Empire reborn) for thousands of years.
The seperatists had been gone for more than 15 years by the time of the rebellion. By then, the Empire was clearly a brutal police state and one where humans and aliens alike were banding together to overthrow it and restore the freedom of the Old Republic.
So your explanation doesn't make any sense.
It makes perfect sense. The Senate was only dissolved during ANH, explicitly thanks to the construction of the Death Star.
Or did you really think one guy managed to change everything about the whole galaxy in about 20 years?
The Sith and the whole Light Side versus Dark Side is a central part of Star Wars. Beating the Sith is a big deal.
Only a handfull of people were ever aware that it was a Light Side vs Dark Side War against the Sith.
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: The brutality of the Empire would also vary world to world and Commander to commander. The EU often makes the Imperials into your generic saturday morning cartoon villains because they want you to hate the Empire, and want you to support the Rebellion.
Both sides are the villains and neither side are, from a certain point of view...
No in the films the Empire are clearly monsters and the rebels unambiguous good guys.
Even EU is clear.
The only good Imperials, like Han Solo, joined the rebellion because they realised how bad it was.
Totalwar1402 wrote: The Sith and the whole Light Side versus Dark Side is a central part of Star Wars. Beating the Sith is a big deal.
I agree -- but it is not the only deal. The Rebels are the Alliance to Restore the Republic not the Alliance to Defeat the Sith. There is no evidence that anyone in the OT besides Obi-Wan and Yoda even know what the Sith are much less that the Emperor is a Sith Lord.
Totalwar1402 wrote: A nation state means that people within it have a common identity and that the state exists to represent those people. The EMpire is an amalgamation of millions of worlds with vastly different cultures and aliens who used to be part of a federal government. It is an Empire which exists to serve the personal designs of the Sith Emperor. For these reasons its not a nation state.
Nonsense. It's a nation state with a higher degree of centralized power than the one it replaced, but it's still a galaxy-wide government for a galaxy that has had a unified government for thousands of years. It still has the same bureaucracy, the same military providing the same protection against pirates, etc. Sure, there are whiny teenagers like Luke carrying on the tradition of whining about the government, but for the average citizen not much changed except the faces on the money. That isn't going to go away overnight just because the emperor is dead, there will be a fight for control of the empire between the high-ranking politicians/military officers/etc and then the winner will take over everything that the previous emperor built. The bureaucrats aren't going to suddenly stop doing their job because the ideology of the person at the top changed a bit.
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: The brutality of the Empire would also vary world to world and Commander to commander. The EU often makes the Imperials into your generic saturday morning cartoon villains because they want you to hate the Empire, and want you to support the Rebellion.
Both sides are the villains and neither side are, from a certain point of view...
No in the films the Empire are clearly monsters and the rebels unambiguous good guys.
Even EU is clear.
The only good Imperials, like Han Solo, joined the rebellion because they realised how bad it was.
Um, no thats not how things work. Piett was not shown to be a monster, just a man doing his job. Captain Needa, again a man. The Stormtroopers? Sure some of them kill Owen and Beru but most of them you see are just doing their jobs, for the cause they believe in.
Totalwar1402 wrote: No in the films the Empire are clearly monsters and the rebels unambiguous good guys.
{citation needed}
The only "monstrously" evil thing we see the Empire do is Tarkin's destruction of Alderaan as a political statement. Meanwhile we see that civilian life goes on as usual, as long as there's no rebellion. And we don't ever see the rebellion do anything to earn the title of "unambiguous good guys". They're the protagonists (and get labeled "good" by default as a result) but the only thing they ever do on-screen is fight against the Empire. And history is full of wars where neither side could really be labeled "good".
The only good Imperials, like Han Solo, joined the rebellion because they realised how bad it was.
Err, lol? Did you watch the same movie as the rest of us? Han left the Empire and became a criminal, a life he was perfectly happy with. He only reluctantly joined the rebellion much later.
Totalwar1402 wrote: A nation state means that people within it have a common identity and that the state exists to represent those people. The EMpire is an amalgamation of millions of worlds with vastly different cultures and aliens who used to be part of a federal government. It is an Empire which exists to serve the personal designs of the Sith Emperor. For these reasons its not a nation state.
Nonsense. It's a nation state with a higher degree of centralized power than the one it replaced, but it's still a galaxy-wide government for a galaxy that has had a unified government for thousands of years. It still has the same bureaucracy, the same military providing the same protection against pirates, etc. Sure, there are whiny teenagers like Luke carrying on the tradition of whining about the government, but for the average citizen not much changed except the faces on the money. That isn't going to go away overnight just because the emperor is dead, there will be a fight for control of the empire between the high-ranking politicians/military officers/etc and then the winner will take over everything that the previous emperor built. The bureaucrats aren't going to suddenly stop doing their job because the ideology of the person at the top changed a bit.
That makes it a STATE.
A nation is the idea that people belong to a community or group that should be represented by their state; not ruled by foriegners or by individuals for example. Crucial to this is the idea of a shared history and distinct national identity.In The Old Republic, the Imperials and Sith in that are very clearly a nation state because they are a distinct people. In the films, the EMpire recruits humans from tens of thousands of worlds regardless of origin. The Galactic Civil War is a pure war of good versus evil. The rebels are the same stock of people but have very different moral convictions; which is why they find themselves on opposite sides in the civil war.
Manchu wrote: I could see that argument that the Republic is not a "nation-state" but the Empire very clearly is one.
Definitely debatable.
Although it was still a overarching galactic government, albeit an ineffectual one, that had existed for thousands of years. At the least people had some sort of identity.
Its possible that the clone wars themselves are what solidified that galactic identity to the point where it had enough substance for people to rally around.
There is also the human/alien dynamic. The empire was pro-human, and humans were a majority, although a narrow one.
Palatine basically gave the republic a identity with the clone wars and then turned that to accept the empire.
Totalwar1402 wrote: No in the films the Empire are clearly monsters and the rebels unambiguous good guys.
{citation needed}
The only "monstrously" evil thing we see the Empire do is Tarkin's destruction of Alderaan as a political statement. Meanwhile we see that civilian life goes on as usual, as long as there's no rebellion.
The only good Imperials, like Han Solo, joined the rebellion because they realised how bad it was.
Err, lol? Did you watch the same movie as the rest of us? Han left the Empire and became a criminal, a life he was perfectly happy with. He only reluctantly joined the rebellion much later.
Just using the films.
The Empire dissolves the democratic government.
The Empire wipes out the guardians order of paragons dedicated to the light side
The Sith orchestrate a war in which millions die (Clone Wars) to seize power.
The Empire enslaves non humans (note this is the reason they walk around Death Star with Chewie)
The Empire tortures people
The Empire is prepared to blow up worlds to intimidate the galaxy.
The Empire hires bounty hunters to hunt down its enemies. Including evil Mandalorians and Trandoshans.
A nation is the idea that people belong to a community or group that should be represented by their state; not ruled by foriegners or by individuals for example. Crucial to this is the idea of a shared history and distinct national identity.In The Old Republic, the Imperials and Sith in that are very clearly a nation state because they are a distinct people. In the films, the EMpire recruits humans from tens of thousands of worlds regardless of origin. The Galactic Civil War is a pure war of good versus evil. The rebels are the same stock of people but have very different moral convictions; which is why they find themselves on opposite sides in the civil war.
They are a nation state, all of those worlds belong to the Empire, many of them happily so. Recruiting people from a world is done by the Empire through voluntary methods, and is not once implied to be via conscription. Which likely means that the people that join believe in the Empire they are fighting for, which by your definition makes it a Nation and one that is not dependent on the rule of the Sith, but by the belief that the Empire is their home and they will do anything to safe guard it. Which would be heightened by the massive loss of life suffered at the Battle of Endor, by the direct cause of a force believed by the Empire to be a Terrorist organization.
im a huge star wars movie fan. i watched the first movie in '77. personally i dont care about what books were written after. it doesnt matter if disney is doing the movies. its going to be an amazing series. im pumped and this last trailer was amazing.
Totalwar1402 wrote: That ending is absolutely clear that the EMpire has fallen.
Which ending? The original ending that just shows the Alliance celebrating a victorious battle or the one created twenty years after the movie was originally released showing several worlds celebrating?
Not to mention that in the EU, the citizens of Coruscant were convinced that the Death Stars were REBEL creations, not Imperial, and that the Emperor died sacrificing himself to destroy the second one.
The Imperial Senate was still IMPERIAL, the likely hood that the Senators were democratically elected is slim to none.
The Empire wipes out the guardians order of paragons dedicated to the light side
The Paragons of Good that take children away from their parents to be forcibly inducted into a cult, who knowingly and willing take command of a Slave Army that has no say in their lives. Those Paragons of Good?
The Sith orchestrate a war in which millions die (Clone Wars) to seize power.
A war that the Jedi are ultimately more than willing to join, rather than remain out by cause of neutrality.
The Empire enslaves non humans (note this is the reason they walk around Death Star with Chewie)
The Republic enslaves humans, in the form of the Clone Troopers to fight in a War that ultimately their own corruption allowed.
The Empire tortures people
No evidence the Republic didn't, and the New Republic does.
The Empire is prepared to blow up worlds to intimidate the galaxy.
I'll give you that one for free, cause the Vong don't count and the Death Star would have been used against them.
The Empire hires bounty hunters to hunt down its enemies. Including evil Mandalorians and Trandoshans.
Evil Mandalorians citation needed
The Republic also makes use of Bounty Hunters to hunt down their enemies.
A government that was considered corrupt and inefficient, even by the "good" characters. Remember, the movie shows the senate celebrating when Palpatine takes power.
The Empire wipes out the guardians order of paragons dedicated to the light side
Alternatively, the Empire wipes out a rogue militia group that exists to serve its own agenda and is only superficially under the control of the government.
The Sith orchestrate a war in which millions die (Clone Wars) to seize power.
And nobody knows this.
The Empire enslaves non humans (note this is the reason they walk around Death Star with Chewie)
Slavery was legal under the previous government as well. Remember how Anakin was a slave before he became Vader? Also, Chewbacca was disguised as a prisoner on the death star, not a slave.
The Empire tortures people
So does the US government. Is the US government "monstrously evil"?
The Empire is prepared to blow up worlds to intimidate the galaxy.
Yes, and I conceded that this was the one "monstrously evil" thing they do.
The Empire hires bounty hunters to hunt down its enemies. Including evil Mandalorians and Trandoshans.
Oh, I see, you're a racist who thinks that an entire species is evil? And hiring bounty hunters to hunt down criminals and terrorists is hardly an act of unimaginable evil.
Totalwar1402 wrote: Finally, it indicates that Disney is absolutely obsessed with making these films as much like the original trilogy as possible. Same cast, same setting, everything. They do not want to try anything new and this is a bad thing for any film franchise to do. If even a mild thing like, progressing the plot after the defeat of the Emperor is so unthinkable to them because then we wouldn't have BIG scary empire versus rebels. Even though games and stories like Knights and The Old Republic have shown that you can tell an excellent Star Wars tale without being totally hidebound to the setup of the original film. In TOR both factions are well matched in power for example as they 're locked in a mortal struggle of light versus darkness.
That's my main gripe for me as well. I liked Tim Zahn's books precisely because, even if they kept truish to the spirit of the trilogy, they did read like light political or spy thrillers set in the Star Wars universe. With Luke's big hero journey completed, there was no need to gloss over the mystical side of the trilogy again, and it was nice to see the Jedi and all associated mythos take a second seat to the monumental task of building a fair political regime off the ruins of the old empire.
I really hand it to the OP. This is better trolling than even Frazzled has pulled off lately! Bravo!
As a side note, the Empire represented Order and Human-centricity. Do you really think that doesn't appeal to a lot of people in the Empire. It wasn't the power of the Sith that held the Empire together, it was the core values of Law, Order, and Humanity first. Especially after the anarchy of the Clone Wars such views were widely ewelcomed.
The way I see it is that the Empire, even though it was created by a Sith Lord is a huge self sustaining entity that's more than capable of surviving the emperor's death. In fact it's silly to claim that the empire would simply collapse following the battle of Endor.
There would probably be some local uprisings and a huge upswing in open support for the rebellion but the Empire would almost certainly rally once the power vacuum had been filled. Especially as the rebels would initially be in a weak position having had a good portion of their fleet destroyed at Endor. The Empire can replace their losses far easier than the rebels can.
What would then likely see is the war continuing with the Empire cracking down on the uprisings and the rebels rebuilding their military capability and expanding their influence. A protracted war lasting 30 years isn't necessarily an unrealistic prospect.
Easy E wrote: I really hand it to the OP. This is better trolling than even Frazzled has pulled off lately! Bravo!
I agree and it's why I am staying out of the "argument." I mean, the OP is complaining that Disney is making the new films (that no one has seen yet) too much like the Original Trilogy... you know, the thing us Star Wars nerds have been wanting since 1999.
The prequel trilogy does make good sense as a high level political backstory.
The Republic is a sprawling global alliance of systems, interplanetary powers, and galactic businesses. It presumably exists to coordinate to the mutual benefit of all its members but is riven by innumerable conflicting interests. The Republic is out of touch and might as well not even exist from the POV of certain systems, like Tatooine. Powerbrokers like the Trade Federation actually divert attention away from their shady activities by invoking the Republic's own parliamentary process. The visual story shows us a few noble humans prevented from getting anything done by a baffling variety of squabbling aliens.
One of those humans gets fed up with it and decides to get some of the squabbling aliens to work together. Those aliens happen to own a major slice of galactic finance and industry. Now, the movies do not clearly explain why but we can guess that the tension resulting from their secession from the Republic erupts into the first major war for generations at least. Again visually, the war ends up being between some aliens controlling robots on one side to mostly aliens controlling humans on the other. Eventually, the human army gets the upper hand at which point Palpatine frames the species-diverse Jedi for attempted assassination/treason and gets the human army to start wiping them out.
At the same time, the human army stamps out the last of the alien secessionists and begins to establish order in the formerly lawless Outer Rim. The Emperor cuts through the senate full of squabbling aliens with unilateral decrees backed up by his human army. The humans enslave entire alien species to build a super weapon. By the time ANH rolls around, the Emperor cuts out both aliens and squabbling (a.k.a., democracy) altogether.
Before the destruction of Alderaan, we're treated to the cold blooded murders of Owen and Beru Lars (and the Jawas before them) for no other reason than being casually associated with rebel assets.
That's what settled the Empire as "evil" for me. It is not some stylized, space-operatic act of evil, but a low, dirty, all too human one. The kind of act we've seen commited by terrorist groups, death squads and occupying armies throughout our history.
Good point, that was what the scene was supposed to tell us. This is the point where Luke resolves to go fight in contrast to his earlier statement that he hates the Empire (like everyone) but can't do anything about it.
Manchu wrote: Good point, that was what the scene was supposed to tell us. This is the point where Luke resolves to go fight in contrast to his earlier statement that he hates the Empire (like everyone) but can't do anything about it.
Agreed.
I think it's pretty clear that in the context of Star Wars films, the Empire is Evil and the Rebellion is Good. I mean, the movies are a modern fable or fairytale, and those types of stories have a pretty clear good/evil dynamic to them.
Yeah, guys like Piett don't really have an opportunity for moral decisions in the movies. I mean, I guess he could have objected to Vader murdering Ozzell but him keeping quiet just then was eminently reasonable. OTOH, there's a room full of Imperial brass in ANH and nobody there pipes up in opposition to blowing up entire planets either as a concept or as a practice. Similarly, nobody on the Death Star is seen to refuse the order to murder all those Alderaaneans.
Agent_Tremolo wrote: Before the destruction of Alderaan, we're treated to the cold blooded murders of Owen and Beru Lars (and the Jawas before them) for no other reason than being casually associated with rebel assets.
That's what settled the Empire as "evil" for me. It is not some stylized, space-operatic act of evil, but a low, dirty, all too human one. The kind of act we've seen commited by terrorist groups, death squads and occupying armies throughout our history.
But this is like taking one example of real-world police brutality in the US and claiming that the whole US government is evil. And we never get an opportunity to see what the rebellion would do in similar situations. Would they take the moral high ground and leave witnesses alive because murdering them would be wrong, or would they be just as ruthless as the Empire but for a different side? How many innocents died along with the Bothan spies who stole the death star plans? Did the rebels feel much guilt over sending Ewoks armed with bows and spears to be slaughtered as a distraction? Etc.
Manchu wrote: Good point, that was what the scene was supposed to tell us. This is the point where Luke resolves to go fight in contrast to his earlier statement that he hates the Empire (like everyone) but can't do anything about it.
True, but it doesn't really show that the Empire was exceptionally evil. Luke doesn't decide to join the rebellion over an abstract philosophical debate about the use of military force, he joins to get revenge on the people who hurt him. You could just as easily have a scene of a TIE pilot joining the Empire to avenge the loss of her parents, who were civilian employees on the first death star.
Peregrine wrote: Luke doesn't decide to join the rebellion over an abstract philosophical debate about the use of military force, he joins to get revenge on the people who hurt him.
I think Luke's feelings at that point have a lot more to do with justice than revenge (they are different). Remember Luke has already said he abstractly hates the Empire (like everyone). Wonder why? The Empire's brutality is no secret. But it isn't real for Luke until he finds his adoptive parents' charred corpses.
Peregrine wrote: You could just as easily have a scene of a TIE pilot joining the Empire to avenge the loss of her parents, who were civilian employees on the first death star.
Disagree. Said TIE pilot would need to deal with the fact that her parents were complicit with/materially contributed to mass murder on an unimaginable scale. And if these hypothetical parents were forced to be their by the Empire then all the less reason to be angry at the Rebellion.
Manchu wrote: I think Luke's feelings at that point have a lot more to do with justice than revenge (they are different).
Not really. Note what he says: "there's nothing left for me now", not "now I get it, the Empire really is evil". His family is dead, his old life is destroyed, so now he might as well go kill the people who hurt him.
Remember Luke has already said he abstractly hates the Empire (like everyone). Wonder why?
Because he's a whiny teenager carrying on the whiny teenager tradition of complaining about how much the government sucks? "The Empire is so evil, I'd love to go fight against it just as soon as I finish all of my chores and go join the Imperial Academy to complete my dream of being a starship pilot". Even when he gets the droids and suddenly gets the opportunity to do something to fight back against the evil government he's more concerned about his uncle being mad about him wasting time or losing an expensive piece of farm equipment.
Disagree. Said TIE pilot would need to deal with the fact that her parents were complicit with/materially contributed to mass murder on an unimaginable scale. And if these hypothetical parents were forced to be their by the Empire then all the less reason to be angry at the Rebellion.
Why? Luke didn't answer any moral questions in his quest for vengeance. Sure, his family was innocent (except for that pesky little detail of hiding Luke from the Empire), but he sure didn't seem to have any problems about hiring a space-mafia drug smuggler when it was convenient. So why should the hypothetical TIE pilot have to answer a bunch of tough questions before being blinded with rage and going off to kill the people who hurt her?
The Empire enslaves non humans (note this is the reason they walk around Death Star with Chewie)
Slavery was legal under the previous government as well. Remember how Anakin was a slave before he became Vader? Also, Chewbacca was disguised as a prisoner on the death star, not a slave.
Actually not true... Yes, Anakin/ mom were slaves on Tatooine in Ep.1, however they do make the remark/question (was is Padme who asks about slavery?) that while Slavery is outlawed in the Republic, Tatooine is, for all intents and purposes, NOT in the republic. I think that, at best you could consider them independent, at "worst" part of a galactic "Hutt Empire" if such a thing were to exist.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Actually not true... Yes, Anakin/ mom were slaves on Tatooine in Ep.1, however they do make the remark/question (was is Padme who asks about slavery?) that while Slavery is outlawed in the Republic, Tatooine is, for all intents and purposes, NOT in the republic. I think that, at best you could consider them independent, at "worst" part of a galactic "Hutt Empire" if such a thing were to exist.
It might be illegal on paper, but the Republic doesn't make any effort to get rid of it. Where's the Republic fleet arriving in orbit with orders to liberate the oppressed victims of the Hutt criminals? There isn't one, because nobody cares.
Peregrine wrote: Not really. Note what he says: "there's nothing left for me now", not "now I get it, the Empire really is evil". His family is dead, his old life is destroyed, so now he might as well go kill the people who hurt him.
The line cited in no way supports your conclusion. You also forgot the rest of the line: "I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi, like my father." .. harkening back to Ben's line "... before the dark times, before the Empire."
Peregrine wrote: Luke didn't answer any moral questions in his quest for vengeance.
Luke didn't go on a quest for vengeance.
You have fundamentally misunderstood the character and the plot of the movie. But that does explain your TIE pilot analogy. If all the TIE pilot cares about is vengeance, then we have a great story about the dark side. Perfect for an Imperial character.
Manchu wrote: The line cited in no way supports your conclusion. You also forgot the rest of the line: "I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi, like my father." .. harkening back to Ben's line "... before the dark times, before the Empire."
Now pay attention to the anger and pain in his voice as he says it. He doesn't want to become a jedi because he suddenly realized that the jedi ideology is superior to the sith, he wants to become a jedi because he's desperately clinging to the myth of his father as his last remaining family.
You have fundamentally misunderstood the character and the plot of the movie.
No, that would be you. It's pretty clear that Luke is NOT a perfect jedi hero at first. That's the whole point of the cave scene when he's training with Yoda, he still has too much anger and wants to use the force as a weapon and he's vulnerable to falling to the dark side. He doesn't set aside that personal anger and become a noble jedi hero until much later in the story.
But that does explain your TIE pilot analogy. If all the TIE pilot cares about is vengeance, then we have a great story about the dark side. Perfect for an Imperial character.
Except the whole dark side vs. light side thing only applies to jedi vs. sith, not our hypothetical TIE pilot. Nor is it as straightforward as Empire = dark, rebels = light. Remember that one of the heroes of the rebellion is a space-mafia drug smuggler who never has to answer for all the crimes he committed before joining the rebellion. Who cares how many people had their lives destroyed by the drugs Han was carrying, now he's shooting the right people so he's a hero!
Ben told Luke his father was murdered. His father therefore cannot be, as you suggest, Luke's "last remaining family" (and I don't think you can back up your myth angle, either). The scene in question is set up with Ben talking to Luke about the wider world. When Luke sees the corpses of Owen and Beru and their burnt out farm, he decides to step into that wider world. Just as Ben says. There is no hint then or ever after that Luke is motivated by a desire to get revenge on the Empire for murdering his adoptive parents and destroying his childhood home. You have 100% made that up and it demonstrates that you do not understand the movies.
I did not argue that Luke was a perfect Jedi hero at first. I only argued that Luke did not set out on a quest to get revenge. Are you trying to get through a lifetime supply of hay or something? Seriously, you are the king of strawman arguments.
The dark and light sides of the Force apply to the whole SW setting, not just Jedi and Sith. This is the point of Han's character arc, as set up by his verbal sparring with Obi-Wan en route to Alderaan. Han walks away from a life motivated by greed and moral indifference.
Manchu wrote: Ben told Luke his father was murdered. His father therefore cannot be, as you suggest, Luke's "last remaining family" (and I don't think you can back up your myth angle, either).
That's why I said the myth of his father, not his living father. The only life Luke has ever known has just been destroyed, so what can he find to replace it? The idealized myth of his father. He doesn't really know anything about the larger jedi vs. sith conflict, he just knows that his father was some kind of noble hero. So he can't possibly be making an ideological decision to join the light side.
The scene in question is set up with Ben talking to Luke about the wider world. When Luke sees the corpses of Owen and Beru and their burnt out farm, he decides to step into that wider world. Just as Ben says. There is no hint then or ever after that Luke is motivated by a desire to get revenge on the Empire for murdering his adoptive parents and destroying his childhood home. You have 100% made that up and it demonstrates that you do not understand the movies.
Did you really watch the same movie as the rest of us? Luke might not have been screaming "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" as he slaughtered every stormtrooper in his path, but his reaction immediately following the shot of his murdered family is very clearly anger and grief. And later we see Luke struggling with anger issues and having to learn control before he can become a jedi. What exactly is the purpose of the cave scene in ESB if he's not giving in to his desire for vengeance on Vader?
I did not argue that Luke was a perfect Jedi hero at first. I only argued that Luke did not set out on a quest to get revenge. Are you trying to get through a lifetime supply of hay or something? Seriously, you are the king of strawman arguments.
That's exactly what you argued. Maybe "perfect" is exaggerating a bit, but you very clearly argued that Luke was already a jedi hero. In your version he's motivated by a noble desire to fight injustice, which is the ideal he's supposed to meet later in the story. The only way to make his fight with the dark side work is if Luke is initially motivated by personal reasons (grief, anger, etc), struggles to overcome his emotional investment in the fight and the lure of easy vengeance with the dark side, and doesn't reach enlightenment until the final moments of the fight in ROTJ.
The dark and light sides of the Force apply to the whole SW setting, not just Jedi and Sith. This is the point of Han's character arc, as set up by his verbal sparring with Obi-Wan en route to Alderaan. Han walks away from a life motivated by greed and moral indifference.
But that isn't light vs. dark. Remember that whole "knowledge and defense, never for attack" thing? Light vs. dark is not just good vs. evil or heroes vs. villains. Han walks away from a life of crime and joins the army, but there's no suggestion at all that he gives up on things like shooting first when he has to or embraces the jedi ideology of complete emotional detachment and rejection of love. The ending of ROTJ with Han and Leia becoming a couple pretty clearly demonstrates that Han is not following the path of the light side.
Peregrine wrote: It might be illegal on paper, but the Republic doesn't make any effort to get rid of it. Where's the Republic fleet arriving in orbit with orders to liberate the oppressed victims of the Hutt criminals? There isn't one, because nobody cares.
Or, just as in real life, they can't go fighting every outlier that isn't part of the Republic to force them to join. Tatooine is not part of the Republic, and they aren't the only one, and neither is the Hutt Syndicate, which actually is quite powerful and ancient. It isn't that people don't care, it is that there isn't much that can be done. I see you posting here and not off fighting to free every slave either, which I guess means you don't care either.
Peregrine wrote: What exactly is the purpose of the cave scene in ESB if he's not giving in to his desire for vengeance on Vader?
I'm glad you asked as this is clearly the fulcrum of your confusion.
Ben told Luke that Vader is an evil murderer and Luke's own experiences soon confirm this. At this point in Luke's life, good and evil are very simple and clear. Luke's reaction to the specter of vader in the cave is therefore completely reasonable. Being good is about fighting bad, simple as that. His whole worldview is therefore challenged when the mask explodes, revealing Luke's own face beneath. What if there is good inside of what appears to be evil? He puts this question on the back burner to save his friends but ends up confronting Vader who spills the beans about being his dad. Unable to deal with this, Luke attempts suicide (although, importantly, not a suicidal attack on Vader motivated by hateful revenge). By RotJ, Luke has begun to make sense out of his vision on the cave and his feelings about his father. Despite the protests of Obi-Wan and Yoda, who insist that Vader is evil and that Luke must kill him (i.e., how Luke behaved toward the specter of Vader in the cave), Luke ultimately puts his faith CORRECTLY in his father's remaining goodness.
It is precisely because Luke is not motivated by revenge that all of this unfolds.
In his own way, Han "turns to the light side" throughout the OT. It has nothing to do with him becoming a Jedi or whatever you are arguing. Also, that whole Jedi detachment BS is not the light side. It's the arrogant myopia of the dying Jedi Order and the reason they lost their connection to the Force.
Manchu wrote: Ben told Luke that Vader is an evil murderer and Luke's own experiences soon confirm this. At this point in Luke's life, good and evil are very simple and clear.
Sure, and they're largely related to who has personally hurt him. The stores of how evil the Empire is can't even motivate him to care more about the message in R2-D2 than his uncle being mad at him for losing a piece of valuable farm equipment, but once the Empire hurts him personally it's time to fight. When Obi-Wan is killed on the death star Luke immediately goes into a screaming rage and starts wildly blasting everything in sight. Those are the reactions of a person who is flailing back out of anger and grief, not someone making a calm and rational decision that the jedi religion is better than the Empire.
Being good is about fighting bad, simple as that. His whole worldview is therefore challenged when the mask explodes, revealing Luke's own face beneath. What if there is good inside of what appears to be evil?
I don't think that's the message at all. The point was that if Luke tries to use the force as a weapon (whether to seek revenge or simply to kill evil) to fight Vader he risks becoming Vader. That's why it's Luke himself in the mask, and that's why Yoda is disappointed at Luke's failure instead of being satisfied that Luke got the message.
Unable to deal with this, Luke attempts suicide (although, importantly, not a suicidal attack on Vader motivated by hateful revenge).
It's not suicide IMO. He drops right into a convenient shaft that stops his fall without suffering even minor injuries, and Vader goes right to his shuttle to pursue Luke instead of assuming that he's dead. His decision to jump make a lot more sense as an attempt to escape and come back to fight another day.
And how exactly is Luke supposed to attack at that point? He has no weapon, and he's just suffered a serious and painful injury. Even people who are motivated entirely by revenge can understand that impaling themselves on their enemy's sword isn't going to accomplish anything.
Despite the protests of Obi-Wan and Yoda, who insist that Vader is evil and that Luke must kill him (i.e., how Luke behaved toward the specter of Vader in the cave), Luke ultimately puts his faith CORRECTLY in his father's remaining goodness.
I disagree. Pay close attention to what Yoda says: Luke must confront Vader, not Luke must kill Vader. Vader and the emperor are already going to die, and they're certainly going to die if Luke's presence doesn't alert Vader that the shuttle is suspicious and an attack is about to happen. And even if they don't die at Endor a military attack on Vader's fleet probably has a better chance of success than sending a barely-trained Luke against a veteran of lots of lightsaber duels.
The actual point of sending Luke is that he has to resolve his unfinished business before he can pass the last test and become a jedi instead of just a random guy with a lightsaber and some force powers. He doesn't become a jedi until the final moment of the duel with Vader, when he looks at his own robot hand next to his father's and realizes that he's just been trying to kill Vader out of hate and anger and becoming Vader. When he finally accepts that lesson and throws away his weapon he has passed the final test.
In his own way, Han "turns to the light side" throughout the OT. It has nothing to do with him becoming a Jedi or whatever you are arguing. Also, that whole Jedi detachment BS is not the light side. It's the arrogant myopia of the dying Jedi Order and the reason they lost their connection to the Force.
No, you're just missing the point here. Light vs. dark is a matter of rival religions, not just straightforward good vs. evil. That's why you can fall to the dark side despite having good intentions (and even good outcomes). Han becomes a good person in some ways, but he never accepts the jedi religion.
The people in here who think that a massive, galaxy spanning political and military organization is just going to roll over and play dead because of a serious military defeat and an assassination of it's dictator are delusional. Hell in the EU/Legends canon, the Empire Remanent in various forms was around 100YBY+. Warlords like Thrawn, Zsinj, Dalla and of course Ysanne Isard engaged in massive conflicts with the Rebel Alliance ne New Republic, and it was still made clear that they didn't have the full backing of large chunks of the Imperial Remnant.
Totalwar1402 wrote: That ending is absolutely clear that the EMpire has fallen.
Which ending? The original ending that just shows the Alliance celebrating a victorious battle or the one created twenty years after the movie was originally released showing several worlds celebrating?
Not to mention that in the EU, the citizens of Coruscant were convinced that the Death Stars were REBEL creations, not Imperial, and that the Emperor died sacrificing himself to destroy the second one.
Y'know, If the mouse goes back to the original cut for their cannon, that is a good thing.
Besides, the EU was a steaming pile of crap that needed to be tossed. Doesn't matter there were some Crunch bars in it, it all needed to go.
This, so much this.
There were some good bits, a few truly amazing bits, but most of it was complete garbage, and much of it doesn't make sense anyway in light of Eps 1-3 (however awful they were).
Kicking it out and starting over works for me. Same with Star Trek.
Luke's initial reaction to Leia's message is the desire to learn more and help her. Later on, when Obi-Wan suddenly suggests that Luke accompany him to Alderaan, Luke the hayseed farmboy is naturally taken aback. The point is merely that Luke is reluctant to step into the wider world; it has nothing to do with the Empire not being sufficiently evil (which would be a severe misreading of the movie). When he finds out that the Empire has murdered Owen and Beru, Luke realizes that he has to get involved. There is no hint whatsoever throughout any of the movies that their murder has inspired Luke to seek revenge. That must be in the Peregrine Edition.
About the cave vision, Yoda tells Luke he will find inside whatever he brings with him. Yoda has already mentioned that anger, fear, and aggression lead to the dark side. Luke is experiencing all of these things as he struggles with his training. More than anything, he is afraid -- which is why he takes his weapons when Yoda says he will not need them. Unsurprisingly, Luke's fear manifests as Vader. The true horror, however, is not Vader's power but the bizarre vision of Luke's face behind Vader's mask.
Yoda says Luke failed at the cave. But Yoda's opinions are at best suspect. Even your argument that Ben and Yoda are on different pages, and Yoda means something less than kill by "confront," does not change the fact that Yoda was wrong about Luke and Vader. Luke did not fall to the dark side on Bespin. Trying to rescue his friends did not destroy everything they worked for. That's not even mentioning how Yoda bears a huge responsibility for the fall of the Republic, the demise of the Jedi Order, and the ascent of the Sith.
What was Luke supposed to learn at the cave? That the Force should not be used as a weapon? That's BS. A weapon is morally neutral. Hence lightsabers. Regardless of whatever Yoda wanted Luke to see, what Luke actually saw was the deep connection between him an Vader. But because he lacked the conscious knowledge to understand this, he could not truly grasp the meaning of the vision. Of course, Yoda could have helped out here. But instead he tried to frighten Luke with BS about destroying everything his friends had worked for.
Luke finally does understand his vision in the cave much later on, in the Emperor's throne room on the second Death Star, when he has overpowered his father through rage and is a moment away from murdering him. He sees the wires protruding from Vader's stump and the wires in his own wrist. In this moment, he not only realizes that he could fall to the dark side, as the Emperor wishes and hopes, but that his connection with his father means that there is still good in his father, which Obi-Wan explicitly denies earlier.
Light and darkness are not merely a matter of "religion" in the SW setting. In SW, reality has an objective moral dimension embodied by the Force.
P.S. -- Luke did not know he would fall into a shaft on Bespin and not to his death. The novelization from the time even explains this by saying Vader used the Force to guide Luke into the shaft and save him. And in the movie, Vader gets into the shuttle to return to his Star Destroyer. Even if he did not use the Force to save Luke as per the novelization, he definitely would be able to sense that Luke survives.
Totalwar1402 wrote: That ending is absolutely clear that the EMpire has fallen.
Which ending? The original ending that just shows the Alliance celebrating a victorious battle or the one created twenty years after the movie was originally released showing several worlds celebrating?
Not to mention that in the EU, the citizens of Coruscant were convinced that the Death Stars were REBEL creations, not Imperial, and that the Emperor died sacrificing himself to destroy the second one.
Y'know, If the mouse goes back to the original cut for their cannon, that is a good thing.
Han Shot First!
Unfortunately, that isn't likely going to happen.
20th Century Fox still owns distribution rights to the original films, as well as full rights of A New Hope, and of course there is Lucas' feelings on the matter... (spoiler alert: he's not a fan of the idea)
All the stars and planets in the universe would have to align before Fox, Disney, and Lucas would be able to agree with a way to release the original cuts of the first three movies.
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Manchu wrote: Luke's initial reaction to Leia's message is the desire to learn more and help her. Later on, when Obi-Wan suddenly suggests that Luke accompany him to Alderaan, Luke the hayseed farmboy is naturally taken aback. The point is merely that Luke is reluctant to step into the wider world; it has nothing to do with the Empire not being sufficiently evil (which would be a severe misreading of the movie). When he finds out that the Empire has murdered Owen and Beru, Luke realizes that he has to get involved. There is no hint whatsoever throughout any of the movies that their murder has inspired Luke to seek revenge. That must be in the Peregrine Edition.
About the cave vision, Yoda tells Luke he will find inside whatever he brings with him. Yoda has already mentioned that anger, fear, and aggression lead to the dark side. Luke is experiencing all of these things as he struggles with his training. More than anything, he is afraid -- which is why he takes his weapons when Yoda says he will not need them. Unsurprisingly, Luke's fear manifests as Vader. The true horror, however, is not Vader's power but the bizarre vision of Luke's face behind Vader's mask.
Yoda says Luke failed at the cave. But Yoda's opinions are at best suspect. Even your argument that Ben and Yoda are on different pages, and Yoda means something less than kill by "confront," does not change the fact that Yoda was wrong about Luke and Vader. Luke did not fall to the dark side on Bespin. Trying to rescue his friends did not destroy everything they worked for. That's not even mentioning how Yoda bears a huge responsibility for the fall of the Republic, the demise of the Jedi Order, and the ascent of the Sith.
What was Luke supposed to learn at the cave? That the Force should not be used as a weapon? That's BS. A weapon is morally neutral. Hence lightsabers. Regardless of whatever Yoda wanted Luke to see, what Luke actually saw was the deep connection between him an Vader. But because he lacked the conscious knowledge to understand this, he could not truly grasp the meaning of the vision. Of course, Yoda could have helped out here. But instead he tried to frighten Luke with BS about destroying everything his friends had worked for.
Luke finally does understand his vision in the cave much later on, in the Emperor's throne room on the second Death Star, when he has overpowered his father through rage and is a moment away from murdering him. He see's the wires protruding from Vader's stump and the wires in his own wrist. In this moment, he not only realizes that he could fall to the dark side, as the Emperor wishes and hopes, but that his connection with his father means that there is still good in his father, which Obi-Wan explicitly denies earlier.
Light and darkness are not merely a matter of "religion" in the SW setting. In SW, reality has an objective moral dimension embodied by the Force.
P.S. -- Luke did not know he would fall into a shaft on Bespin and not to his death. The novelization from the time even explains this by saying Vader used the Force to guide Luke into the shaft and save him.
Very well said. That perfectly sums up Luke's arc in the Original Trilogy.
However, I cannot wait for Peregrine to pick this apart line by line and tell you how distressingly wrong you are on all accounts.
Light and darkness are not merely a matter of "religion" in the SW setting. In SW, reality has an objective moral dimension embodied by the Force.
I wouldn't say religions, but rather sides, organizations, cliques... you name it. Jedis were an elitist group of faith-based power brokers. The Republic was a corrupt, uncaring bureaucracy that plunged the entire galaxy in war for some petty nonsense over the taxation of trade routes. I even think Peregrine is right in some sense: Maybe the Empire is not so evil after all (I've just remembered the stormtroopers tried to cover up the attacks on the crawler and on the Lars' homestead - that alone hints that terror tactics weren't always in the Empire's agenda) and though it's not shown on screen, nothing tells us the Rebellion doesn't have a couple skeletons in its closet. None of the characters, groups and ideologies on this story are 100% free of blame. Not even Luke in the beginning, but he learns to be good over the course of the movies.
Morality, I think, is the real crux of Star Wars, even more than starship dogfights and seedy cantinas. Few EU works really get it, and that's why I prefer stories that walk around the Force mythos instead of expanding on it (and why I don't trust Abrams and his mates to put Star Wars' sometimes overburdening morals over the public's demands for badassitude).
Manchu wrote: Luke's initial reaction to Leia's message is the desire to learn more and help her.
Yeah, because she's hot and he's a 20-something year old man. That superficial desire is less important than his concern about his uncle being mad at him for wasting time or losing a valuable piece of farm equipment.
There is no hint whatsoever throughout any of the movies that their murder has inspired Luke to seek revenge.
I guess you missed the part where Luke is clearly angry about his family being murdered, and that anger combined with the realization that his entire life has just been destroyed is what motivates him to join Obi-Wan for more than taxi service to the nearest bus stop? Let's look at the novelization version, which makes it clear:
“I share your sorrow, Luke,” he finally ventured softly. “There was nothing you could have done. Had you been there, you’d be dead now, too, and the ’droids would be in the hands of the Imperials. Not even the force—”
“Damn your force!” Luke snarled with sudden violence. Now he turned and glared at Kenobi. There was a set to his jaw that belonged on a much older face.
“I’ll take you to the spaceport at Mos Eisley, Ben. I want to go with you—to Alderaan. There’s nothing left for me here now.” His eyes turned to look out across the desert, to focus on something beyond sand and rock and canyon walls. “I want to learn to be a Jedi, like my father. I want …” He paused, the words backing up like a logjam in his throat.
That's anger, not calm realization that the Empire is evil and fighting it is necessary.
The true horror, however, is not Vader's power but the bizarre vision of Luke's face behind Vader's mask.
Exactly. Luke sees himself in the mask of the person he hates and fears most. The message here is very obvious: Luke's current path (as represented by him taking his weapons with him and immediately trying to use them) is taking him dangerously close to the dark side. And if he gives in to his anger and uses the force as a weapon he will become Vader.
Yoda says Luke failed at the cave.
He doesn't just say it, he shows it. Remember the part where he slumps down in disappointment after Luke fails the test? Luke isn't around to watch it, so it can't be Yoda trying to manipulate him by pretending to be disappointed.
But Yoda's opinions are at best suspect. Even your argument that Ben and Yoda are on different pages, and Yoda means something less than kill by "confront," does not change the fact that Yoda was wrong about Luke and Vader. Luke did not fall to the dark side on Bespin. Trying to rescue his friends did not destroy everything they worked for.
No, Yoda was entirely correct about Luke going off to rescue his friends. He survived, but only by sheer luck. One failed grab at an antenna and Luke is dead. One slight difference in a lightsaber swing and Luke loses his head instead of his hand. Etc. The point was not that Luke was inevitably going to die or fall to the dark side, it was that leaving impulsively like that was dangerously irresponsible. Instead of worrying about the greater responsibilities of becoming a jedi Luke gave in to his emotions and ran off to go "help". He walked right into Vader's trap and barely escaped. If things go just slightly different Luke is dead or a prisoner and the last chance of restoring the jedi is gone.
This just proves what I was saying earlier: Luke is not looking at the big picture, he's looking at his friends vs. his enemies. His friends are good, so off he goes to rescue them. If he was really looking at big picture morality he would have realized that sometimes people die in a war, and it's not worth risking the overall goal of defeating the Empire to possibly save his friends. But Luke isn't willing to make that sacrifice, just like fighting the Empire was only more important than getting his chores done when he had a murdered family to make it personal.
What was Luke supposed to learn at the cave? That the Force should not be used as a weapon? That's BS. A weapon is morally neutral. Hence lightsabers.
Nonsense. The whole point of the story is that the force isn't morally neutral. There is a light side (knowledge and defense) and a dark side (anger and attack), and how you use the force defines who you are. This was the point of the cave lesson: that Luke was dangerously close to becoming what he was trying to fight against because he was using the force for the dark side reasons.
Regardless of whatever Yoda wanted Luke to see, what Luke actually saw was the deep connection between him an Vader. But because he lacked the conscious knowledge to understand this, he could not truly grasp the meaning of the vision.
The "deep connection" was that Luke was about to become Vader. As long as he viewed the force as a weapon and focused on killing Vader the best he could hope to accomplish was to kill Vader and take his place beside the emperor. Your speculation that the vision suggests that Luke has any other connection just isn't supported by the movie. Luke shows no sign of seeing it that way or reluctance to kill Vader until after the "I am your father" revelation.
Luke finally does understand his vision in the cave much later on, in the Emperor's throne room on the second Death Star, when he has overpowered his father through rage and is a moment away from murdering him. He sees the wires protruding from Vader's stump and the wires in his own wrist. In this moment, he not only realizes that he could fall to the dark side, as the Emperor wishes and hopes, but that his connection with his father means that there is still good in his father, which Obi-Wan explicitly denies earlier.
And I think you're missing the point there too. Luke finally understands his vision, but it's the lure and danger of the dark side he understands, not the possible good in Vader. Vader isn't still somehow like Luke, Luke is becoming more like Vader. If he finishes off Vader as he lies wounded on the floor (after Luke just gave in to his anger to get the strength to beat him) then he has become Vader. One sith dies, and another rises to replace him. But instead he throws away his weapon and chooses his principles over winning, and at that moment he becomes a jedi. It doesn't matter if Vader still has good in him or not, Luke still has to show him mercy and take the moral high ground.
Light and darkness are not merely a matter of "religion" in the SW setting. In SW, reality has an objective moral dimension embodied by the Force.
I don't think you understand what "objective" means. There's never any objective quality shown in the force or its effects, only the moral judgements of the people who use it.
Agent Tremelo, You necessarily have to look outside of the movies to find anything that casts the Rebellion as morally gray. But the EU had a fair number of plots along those lines. This comes back to the point SPJr and I were talking about in the trailer thread: do you take SW as a Hollywood-produced fairy tale with archetypal villains and heroes or do you take SW as an alternate reality? If the latter, then you can ask questions like Peregrine did about Han: how many lives were ruined by the drugs he smuggled for Jabba? How far would the Rebellion go to defeat the Empire? Is there really any difference between them?
Well, that last one is a bit angsty teenager. There is certainly a bright line between the Rebellion and the Empire, even for those who prefer to enjoy SW as a kind of gritty, organic alternate reality. And that line is not as simple as who destroys billions of sentient beings at a stroke just to prove a political point. That atrocity reflects the real difference: unlike the Alliance, the Empire shows no interest in governing (which is different from merely dominating others with brutal force).
Peregrine, Yoda was not correct. Looking back on that scene with the benefit of the prequels, we can see the whole long pattern of Yoda's mistake. Perhaps it is unfair to blame Yoda alone. Perhaps the Order was the same 800 years or more before and he was taught to be blind just as he taught many generations of Jedi to be blind. But I definitely suspect centuries of his leadership played a massive role in what happened. In any case, the Jedi Order dismissed personal relationships for this sterile concept of the greater good. This and nothing more complicated spelled their doom. The inability to understand others, even at a very simple level, brought them low. In any case, Yoda is still stuck in this mindset after decades of exile. Advising Luke to abandon his friends ... and as it turns out his sister ... to Vader is just the same as when he inadvertently advised Anakin to give up on Padme. Qui-Gon Jinn tried to teach Obi-Wan about the Living Force but Obi-Wan was unfortunately too conventional to question the cracked wisdom of the Council as his master did.
If you insist on looking at the big picture morality, then ask yourself: who failed to detect the Sith Lord after decades in close proximity? who cooperated with the mobilization of what was to become the Imperial army? who stood by as Palpatine subverted democracy in the Senate? who then failed to stop Palpatine? who did nothing for decades afterward until Palpatine had amassed the power to murder a whole world at the press of a button? And even then, too late ...
As it turned out, Luke's presence on Bespin saved his friends. One cannot imagine Vader letting the Falcon slip away without Luke distracting Vader, considering the whole movie is pretty much about finding that ship and the people on it.
As far as the vision in the cave -- you've only got half of it. As I already explained to you, Luke's full realization comes later on at the end of RotJ. The beauty of Luke's arc, and the innermost heart of the morality of SW, is that "I am your father" necessarily means "you are my son" and "you are my father" necessarily means "I am your son." This is the mystery of the cave fully untangled, the arc of redemption, the wisdom that eluded the Jedi Order to their deadly peril but that saved Luke and Vader and defeated evil.
KalashnikovMarine wrote: The people in here who think that a massive, galaxy spanning political and military organization is just going to roll over and play dead because of a serious military defeat and an assassination of it's dictator are delusional. Hell in the EU/Legends canon, the Empire Remanent in various forms was around 100YBY+. Warlords like Thrawn, Zsinj, Dalla and of course Ysanne Isard engaged in massive conflicts with the Rebel Alliance ne New Republic, and it was still made clear that they didn't have the full backing of large chunks of the Imperial Remnant.
I think this can be further evidenced by the fact that the "Imperial" logo in the second trailer for Force Awakens is kind of a mish mash of the Empire's emblem and Ogre Kingdoms "ring of teeth" thing.
@Manchu I think that there isnt much way to look at the story as a whole, when even Obi Wan (paragon of virtue that he is) makes a comment in Ep. 3 about clone trooper pilots dying... Remember Anakin wants to go off and dog fight the droids, saying that they were killing off all the Republic's clone pilots. Obi Wan shoots back with, "That's what theyre there for!!" IMO, that's pretty morally grey, plus as we all know, he "lied" to Luke about Vader/Anakin (from a certain point of view)
Of course, there are other movies out there that would/could address the "do clones have rights as "natural" humans do?" issue better than star wars, but I still think it shows the Republic/Rebellion to not be the perfectly shining example they are supposed to be.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: @Manchu I think that there isnt much way to look at the story as a whole, when even Obi Wan (paragon of virtue that he is) makes a comment in Ep. 3 about clone trooper pilots dying... Remember Anakin wants to go off and dog fight the droids, saying that they were killing off all the Republic's clone pilots. Obi Wan shoots back with, "That's what theyre there for!!" IMO, that's pretty morally grey, plus as we all know, he "lied" to Luke about Vader/Anakin (from a certain point of view)
Of course, there are other movies out there that would/could address the "do clones have rights as "natural" humans do?" issue better than star wars, but I still think it shows the Republic/Rebellion to not be the perfectly shining example they are supposed to be.
The Clone Army has nothing to do with the Rebellion. As for the way Jedi treat clones ... yeah, I think this is yet more evidence that the Jedi failed. They are so focused on the Big Picture that they don't understand the value of a sentient life. The Clones become just another resource for them ... ironically in a pointless war. As it turned out, their Big Picture was just an illusion. Even more ironically, it seems like Anakin is the only person (maybe also Asoka) who treats the clones as real people. I have posted on Dakka before that I don't think the clones turning on the Jedi is only a matter of Order 66. The Jedi had oftentimes treated the clones very close to droids, which they resented. Meanwhile, Anakin's clones become his trusted personal unit of storm troopers.
Manchu wrote: That atrocity reflects the real difference: unlike the Alliance, the Empire shows no interest in governing (which is different from merely dominating others with brutal force).
How so? We don't see the Empire's everyday governing in any real detail, and we certainly don't see the rebellion do any governing (until the non-canon EU at least).
Peregrine, Yoda was not correct.
How wasn't he? I pointed out some of the times where Luke could easily have died on Bespin, and his friends were already on their way out by the time he arrived. It was an incredibly stupid risk to take, and demonstrated that Luke wasn't responsible enough to become a jedi at that point.
As it turned out, Luke's presence on Bespin saved his friends. One cannot imagine Vader letting the Falcon slip away without Luke distracting Vader, considering the whole movie is pretty much about finding that ship and the people on it.
Luke didn't save anyone. His friends had already escaped thanks to Lando finally discovering his spine and his conscience, and Vader had no chance of stopping their escape once they pressed the "turn the hyperdrive back on" button. The only thing Luke contributed was bringing R2-D2 back so he could press the button. If Luke had just sent R2-D2 back in his x-wing it would have accomplished the same end result.
As far as the vision in the cave -- you've only got half of it. As I already explained to you, Luke's full realization comes later on at the end of RotJ. The beauty of Luke's arc, and the innermost heart of the morality of SW, is that "I am your father" necessarily means "you are my son" and "you are my father" necessarily means "I am your son." This is the mystery of the cave fully untangled, the arc of redemption, the wisdom that eluded the Jedi Order to their deadly peril but that saved Luke and Vader and defeated evil.
1) The vision in the cave is a separate incident. Luke doesn't show any sign of thinking about it again later, or interpreting it as "Vader is like me". It's nothing more than a warning about the lure of the dark side and how close Luke is to falling.
2) The whole point of Luke's final enlightenment is that it doesn't matter if Vader still has good in him or can be saved. Luke still realizes that he needs to turn his back on his anger and stand by his principles. If Vader just watches him die then he has still died as a jedi. The fact that Vader does finally put family above his loyalty to the emperor doesn't change this decision.
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Ensis Ferrae wrote: Remember Anakin wants to go off and dog fight the droids, saying that they were killing off all the Republic's clone pilots. Obi Wan shoots back with, "That's what theyre there for!!"
Of course you could say the same thing about other fights involving human pilots. The wingmen in the death star trench are just there to die as an extra set of shields to buy the leader a few more seconds to make the torpedo shot, Luke/Wedge/Biggs abandon their squadron leader to die so they won't be delayed in starting their own attack, etc. It's less about the value of clones and more about the need to accept that people die in a war and not let personal feelings get in the way of winning (a lesson Luke has to learn the hard way at Bespin).
Of course you could say the same thing about other fights involving human pilots. The wingmen in the death star trench are just there to die as an extra set of shields to buy the leader a few more seconds to make the torpedo shot, Luke/Wedge/Biggs abandon their squadron leader to die so they won't be delayed in starting their own attack, etc. It's less about the value of clones and more about the need to accept that people die in a war and not let personal feelings get in the way of winning (a lesson Luke has to learn the hard way at Bespin).
I think the difference there is that you had "natural beings" making the conscious decisions that were made. Im sure we are to presume that the "leader" being protected by the extra shields was the "best shot" of that squadron. I mean, nothing in "protect squadron leader so he can take the shot" means "stay in formation at all costs" Though honestly, I'd say the worst actions of the rebellion depicted in the movie is probably on Hoth... what happened to all the guys who were freezing their bums off outside in the snow while the AT-ATs walked up and allowed the space ships and command elements to get airborne?
The Empire's idea of everyday governing is siphoning massive amounts of resources from systems, including slave labor, to build a giant gun to point at their heads to get more resources.
I'm not sure why we are arguing about Luke being irresponsible. In fact, I know that we aren't because I have never claimed it was responsible. My point is, Yoda was incorrect that Luke's departure would destroy everything they worked for. That was fear-mongering, which I guess if we believe Yoda is the same thing as dark side baiting.
At no point in ESB is Luke close to falling to the dark side so that cannot possibly be the point of the cave vision. The actual point is, just in terms of story telling, is to foreshadow the full revelation of the connection between Vader and Luke. RotJ invokes this in reverse to have son identify with father, realizing that he will not kill his own father in whom he knows there is still goodness even as he recognizes there is darkness in himself.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: I mean, nothing in "protect squadron leader so he can take the shot" means "stay in formation at all costs"
But that's exactly what happened. Even once the wingmen knew they were about to die they stayed in formation instead of pulling out of the trench to escape. And everyone knew that's what was going to happen. Red leader's encouragement was "just hold them off for a few seconds", not "you can beat them". Same thing with the y-wing pilot ordering everyone to stay on target even as they were seconds from inevitable death.
Though honestly, I'd say the worst actions of the rebellion depicted in the movie is probably on Hoth... what happened to all the guys who were freezing their bums off outside in the snow while the AT-ATs walked up and allowed the space ships and command elements to get airborne?
Good point. Just like Obi-Wan the rebellion accepted that they were going to have to accept losses to win the battle, and didn't allow sympathy for the poor victims of that decision to cost them everything.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: I'd say the worst actions of the rebellion depicted in the movie is probably on Hoth... what happened to all the guys who were freezing their bums off outside in the snow while the AT-ATs walked up and allowed the space ships and command elements to get airborne?
Rebel soldiers are volunteers in an ideological war. They understand they are putting themselves up against a better armed and more ruthless enemy. The fighters who died or were captured holding off the Empire while the rest of Echo Base evacuated were not the victims of the Rebellion; they were Rebels.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: I'd say the worst actions of the rebellion depicted in the movie is probably on Hoth... what happened to all the guys who were freezing their bums off outside in the snow while the AT-ATs walked up and allowed the space ships and command elements to get airborne?
Rebel soldiers are volunteers in an ideological war. They understand they are putting themselves up against a better armed and more ruthless enemy. The fighters who died or were captured holding off the Empire while the rest of Echo Base evacuated were not the victims of the Rebellion; they were Rebel scum.
fixed that for you.
But that's kind of my point.... the Republic seems to have this callous "Send in the next wave" mentality when it came to the clones and their deployment, whereas we are led to believe that the rebel alliance is small and as such, everyone knows that open conflict is extremely risky on many fronts, and as such they don't tend to just "throw away" bodies.
Manchu wrote: The Empire's idea of everyday governing is siphoning massive amounts of resources from systems, including slave labor, to build a giant gun to point at their heads to get more resources.
This is no longer canon.
I'm not sure why we arguing about Luke being irresponsible.
The point is that Luke was still thinking about everything in terms of how it relates to himself, not big-picture morality. Luke hates the Empire because they killed his family. Luke is willing to risk everything to save his friends because they're his friends. He isn't making calm philosophical decisions about what is right and wrong, he's just reacting emotionally.
My point is, Yoda was incorrect that Luke's departure would destroy everything they worked for. That was fear-mongering, which I guess if we believe Yoda is the same thing as dark side baiting.
If I say "don't jump off that building, you're going to die" but you somehow survive because there was a net that neither of us knew existed to stop your fall that doesn't mean I was fear-mongering. Luke didn't survive and avoid destroying everything because he was right, he did it because he was lucky.
At no point in ESB is Luke close to falling to the dark side so that cannot possibly be the point of the cave vision.
Why are you assuming that the cave vision has to be a prophecy about the immediate future? At the time he was certainly on a path that would take him dangerously close to the dark side (as demonstrated by his decision to take his weapons with him into the cave and to use them as his first reaction), and he would certainly face the possibility of falling in ROTJ. Perhaps Luke learned what he needed to learn from the experience and turned away from that path just enough.
The actual point is, just in terms of story telling, is to foreshadow the full revelation of the connection between Vader and Luke.
It doesn't really foreshadow that connection because the obvious interpretation ("if you use the force as a weapon you become a sith just like Vader") is not the actual revelation ("I am your father"). Remove either and the other still makes perfect sense.
RotJ invokes this in reverse to have son identify with father, realizing that he will not kill his own father in whom he knows there is still goodness.
But again, that's not really what happens. Luke doesn't refrain from killing Vader because he's still trying to turn him back to the light side, he throws away his weapon because he realizes that if he kills a wounded and helpless man out of anger he will become Vader.
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Manchu wrote: We definitely don't see the Rebels throwing away their people in any of the movies.
Sure we do. They throw away the troops on Hoth to buy time to evacuate the most important people and equipment, they throw away the wingmen in the death star trench, and they're willing to throw away the entire rebel fleet at Endor to buy more time for Han and friends to bring the shield down. There's really no difference between "stay on target" and "don't turn back to help them at the expense of our mission".
Do you mean the slave labour part is no longer canon? Because everything else is straight out of ANH.
Again, you want to saddle me with argument that Luke was right. So. Many. Strawmen. I think making a strawman argument is actually your way of conceding a point. My point was Yoda is wrong. Yoda claimed to see the future. Looks like his vision had not improved since RotS. And Luke was not even on a long-term trajectory toward the dark side. If anything, Yoda and Obi-Wan's fears for Luke are projections of their own unresolved guilt over Anakin and, you know, fething up everything.
Luke does not use the Force as a weapon in the cave or at any point in ESB. That's simply not what the scene is about. He takes weapons with him because he is afraid and feels like he needs to defend himself. This fear manifests as a vision of Vader and his connection to Vader, which pans out horrifically (THAT's NOT TRUE THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE) on Bespin.
Luke's motive throughout RotJ is to save Vader. He almost kills Vader himself, however. It is only by remembering that he is Vader's son and Vader is his father that he recovers himself and in the process catalyzes Anakin's moral courage.
None of the scenes you mention involve the Rebellion throwing away men. In each case, there is a calculated risk assumed by the smallest number of people possible to save a much larger group of people from harm.
Manchu wrote: Again, you want to saddle me with argument that Luke was right. So. Many. Strawmen. I think making a strawman argument is actually your way of conceding a point. My point was Yoda is wrong.
How exactly is Yoda supposed to be wrong about saying "WTF Luke, this is a really stupid and selfish idea" without Luke being right?
Yoda claimed to see the future.
You don't need to see the future to understand that running off to go save your friends instead of looking at the big picture and finishing your training is a bad idea. Yoda was still exactly right even without any visions of the future.
And Luke was not even on a long-term trajectory toward the dark side. If anything, Yoda and Obi-Wan's fears for Luke are projections of their own unresolved guilt over Anakin.
Evidence of this? In the actual movies we see Luke come dangerously close to the dark side and only pull back at the last moment.
Luke does not use the Force as a weapon in the cave or at any point in ESB. That's simply not what the scene is about. He takes weapons with him because he is afraid and feels like he needs to defend himself. This fear manifests as a vision of Vader and his connection to Vader, which pans out horrifically (THAT's NOT TRUE THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE) on Bespin.
No, he doesn't literally force lightning "Vader" to death, but he still goes into the cave with the assumption that he needs weapons. And as soon as he sees an opportunity he uses those weapons. Lesson: Luke is too aggressive, and that leads to the dark side.
And no, his fear doesn't really come true at Bespin. The vision in the cave is that Luke IS Vader, not that he's related to Vader. The vision never comes true because, at the end of ROTJ, Luke refrains from killing in anger and becoming Vader.
Luke's motive throughout RotJ is to save Vader. He almost kills Vader himself, however. It is only by remembering that he is Vader's son and Vader is his father that he recovers himself and in the process catalyzes Anakin's moral courage.
And, again, it isn't being Vader's son that stops him from killing Vader at the end, it's the fear of becoming Vader. If Luke kills a wounded and helpless man out of anger then he is no better than Vader and has fallen to the dark side just like his father. It doesn't matter if Vader is still good or not, or even if he's Luke's father. Luke can't kill him and still be a jedi. And so he throws away his weapon and accepts his fate.
None of the scenes you mention involve the Rebellion throwing away men. In each case, there is a calculated risk assumed by the smallest number of people possible to save a much larger group of people from harm.
Just like the scene where they "throw away" the clones. Obi-Wan takes a calculated risk with a small number of people to ensure the success of the mission and save a larger group of people from harm (the war continuing because the bad guys escape with their hostage). If that's throwing people away then so is Luke/Biggs/Wedge abandoning their squadron leader to die so that they don't delay their own torpedo run.
Again, Yoda isn't talking about what is a bad idea. He's talking about the future. You can tell me jumping out of the window is a bad idea. If I jump out the window and win the fething lottery instead of falling to my death, you're still right. Generally speaking, jumping out of windows is bad news. But if you predict that I will die if I jump out of that window right there and I don't die then you are incorrect.
We see Luke go off the deep end of rage for about 20 seconds at the end of the movie following the one you are talking about. He not only recovers himself but does so in such a full and convincing way that the Emperor decides he cannot be turned and must be killed.
You are taking a mystical vision way too literally. The vision manifests Luke's unconscious knowledge of his relationship to Vader. In SW, it is possible to know things through the insight of the Force. This is how Luke intuits that Leia is his sister. This is why Leia says she has always known when he tells her. This is why Vader tells Luke to search his feelings as EVIDENCE that Vader is telling the truth about being his dad.
Luke is not only afraid of falling to the dark side; he also struggles about whether he can save his father. Deep down, he knows there is still good in Anakin. But this is undermined by his douchey mentors and Vader's own evil behavior. Luke's eventual empathy with Vader is what finally and fully convinces him that he himself is a Jedi and what convinces Vader that he is still Anakin and must save his son.
It doesn't make sense to compare clones (grown, marketed, and purchased to fight in a war) with volunteers. To anyone following along, since Peregrine will ignore this, please contrast Obi-Wan's immediate callous disregard of the dying clones with Leia who has to be dragged away to the Falcon because she is so concerned with the fate of her comrades on Hoth.
If anyone wants proof of the Empire being evil racist bastards just look at the role of Stormtropper vs Jawas or Sandpeople.
Stormtrooper vs Rebel: can't hit a thing
Stromtrooper vs Jawas: can hit them in the eye from a thousand yards almost as if they have special Jawa racial targeting hardware on their blasters. Nothing makes a Stormtrooper's aim straight like Jawa hate.
Engaging in covert ops of slaughting Jawas and moisture farmers under the cover as a Sandpeople attack....
Manchu wrote: Again, Yoda isn't talking about what is a bad idea. He's talking about the future. You can tell me jumping out of the window is a bad idea. If I jump out the window and win the fething lottery instead of falling to my death, you're still right. Generally speaking, jumping out of windows is bad news. But if you predict that I will die if I jump out of that window right there and I don't die then you are incorrect.
Yoda is talking about the future, but he isn't necessarily making predictions based on seeing the future through the force. He says "if you do this you will destroy everything", not "I have seen the future and you will fail". So really you're just nitpicking the difference between "this is a really stupid idea and you will fail" and "this is a really stupid idea and you will almost certainly fail".
We see Luke go off the deep end of rage for about 20 seconds at the end of the movie following the one you are talking about. He not only recovers himself but does so in such a full and convincing way that the Emperor decides he cannot be turned and must be killed.
Because he overcame the lure of the dark side. He faced temptation and won. That doesn't mean that he was never in any danger.
You are taking a mystical vision way too literally.
And you're just speculating about this, unless you can cite a canon source for your interpretation. The straightforward interpretation is "don't be too aggressive or you'll fall to the dark side", Yoda takes it that way, and Luke doesn't say anything to suggest that he disagrees when Yoda says "remember your failure at the cave" as Luke is about to leave. There's no evidence that it shouldn't be taken literally.
Luke is not only afraid of falling to the dark side; he also struggles about whether he can save his father. Deep down, he knows there is still good in Anakin. But this is undermined by his douchey mentors and Vader's own evil behavior. Luke's eventual empathy with Vader is what finally and fully convinces him that he himself is a Jedi and what convinces Vader that he is still Anakin and must save his son.
And I guess we just disagree here. You think that Luke throws away his weapon because of empathy for his father, I think that he does it because he knows that if he kills a wounded and helpless opponent then he will be no better than Vader. And you don't really have any evidence that it's Luke's act of mercy that turns Vader from the dark side, rather than Vader simply not being able to watch his son be tortured to death.
It doesn't make sense to compare clones (grown, marketed, and purchased to fight in a war) with volunteers.
Why not? The clones aren't making the decision we're talking about, Obi-Wan is. If Obi-Wan's refusal to allow Anakin to turn back and help his meatshield wingmen at the expense of the mission is "throwing them away without caring about their deaths" then so is what the rebellion does. You can't criticize Obi-Wan for not caring about the lives of his fellow soldiers when almost everyone else does the same thing.
To anyone following along, since Peregrine will ignore this, please contrast Obi-Wan's immediate callous disregard of the dying clones with Leia who has to be dragged away to the Falcon because she is so concerned with the fate of her comrades on Hoth.
That's one character, contrasted with all of the other rebels who accept that people die in a war and put the mission ahead of individual lives.
Yoda could have told Luke going to Bespin is prospectively dumb. But what he actually told him is that going to Bespin would destroy everything his friends worked for. He was wrong. This is not nitpicking; it's merely reporting on what happened in the movie. The interesting part is discussing why Yoda made that prediction.
Your "straightforward" interpretation of the cave vision is actually nonsensical. It cannot be about Luke using the Force as a weapon because he doesn't do that. It cannot be about Luke being too aggressive because what he does in his vision makes sense and is not overly aggressive. An actually straightfoward interpretation is, Luke's fear is manifest in an image connecting him to Vader that foreshadows Vader's revelation on Bespin, which is what Yoda actually fears.
The point about Luke and Vader's co-redemption in RotJ is supported by the scene of Luke talking to Anakin unmasked. "You were right about me. Tell your sister you were right." Besides, FEAR of falling to the dark side obviously cannot protect you from falling to the dark side because ... fear leads to the dark side. What does prevent Luke from falling? His faith in the goodness within his father. Similarly, what redeems Vader? His son's faith in his goodness.
About Obi-Wan and Leia, it doesn't matter if the comparison is between two characters. These characters represent their respective affiliations.
Totalwar1402 wrote: [But, again, defeating the Emperor and destroying the bulk of the Imperial navy at Endor was a crippling blow against the Empire. Surely that should be taken into account when you're advancing the setting by 30 years. Why would the rebels not have things more in order?
Though the Thrawn trilogy does say something about the losses too. Serving on Vader's flagship, the Executor, was a fast track for promotion. A disproportionate amount of the best and brightest junior officers in the Imperial Navy went down with that ship. Pellaeon regretted some of that himself in the trilogy, looking at himself (grey hair and moustache) taking reports from eager shiny-eyed twenty-something old ensigns. In the old days (he thought to himself) such youngsters would never have been on the bridge crew of an Imperial Star Destroyer. The loss of ships wasn't the issue as much as the loss of a large amount of the best up-and-coming officers the Empire had enlisted.
I'd kill to have a scene like this on the new movies. Thrawn and Paellon must be in the triology
Manchu wrote: Yoda could have told Luke going to Bespin is prospectively dumb. But what he actually told him is that going to Bespin would destroy everything his friends worked for. He was wrong. This is not nitpicking; it's merely reporting on what happened in the movie. The interesting part is discussing why Yoda made that prediction.
Yes, it really is nitpicking. You're nitpicking the difference between "this will destroy everything your friends have worked for" and "this will almost certainly destroy everything your friends have worked for". Yoda happened to be wrong because Luke got lucky and survived the trap he walked into, but that doesn't mean that Yoda gave him the wrong advice.
Your "straightforward" interpretation of the cave vision is actually nonsensical. It cannot be about Luke using the Force as a weapon because he doesn't do that. It cannot be about Luke being too aggressive because what he does in his vision makes sense and is not overly aggressive.
It fits entirely. Yoda tells him that what is in the cave is "only what you bring with you". Luke chooses to bring his weapons, despite Yoda saying "you won't need those". He goes into the cave expecting to fight and kill the evil thing, which is a sign of aggression. And then when the image of Vader appears Luke is the first to activate his lightsaber and he immediately goes on the offensive to kill "Vader".
An actually straightfoward interpretation is, Luke's fear is manifest in an image connecting him to Vader that foreshadows Vader's revelation on Bespin, which is what Yoda actually fears.
Except that's not really straightforward because it relies on your assumption that this vague connection to Vader represents the knowledge that Vader is his father, not that Luke is in danger of becoming Vader. The straightforward interpretation of an image of Luke's head inside Vader's mask is that it's a symbol of Luke becoming Vader. And that's how everyone in the movie treats the incident.
The point about Luke and Vader's co-redemption in RotJ is supported by the scene of Luke talking to Anakin unmasked. "You were right about me. Tell your sister you were right."
That doesn't say anything about this co-redemption idea of yours. Vader states the obvious: Luke was right. That doesn't mean that Luke and Vader simultaneously redeemed each other, it just means that Vader was redeemed at some point in the story. Vader's statement works just fine if he simply decides that he can't stand watching his son being tortured to death and chooses family over loyalty to the dark side.
Besides, FEAR of falling to the dark side obviously cannot protect you from falling to the dark side because ... fear leads to the dark side.
Call it whatever you want: concern about falling to the dark side, determination not to fall to the dark side, etc. The concept is still the same. Luke does not want to become Vader, and so at the moment when he has to choose between finishing off a helpless opponent and taking the moral high ground he throws away his weapon and accepts his fate.
What does prevent Luke from falling? His faith in the goodness within his father.
Except that isn't really the way it's presented. Luke doesn't throw away his weapon because he can't convince himself to strike the fatal blow against his father, he does it because he compares his own mechanical hand to Vader's and realizes that it represents how he will become Vader if he does anything but throw away his weapon. This act of mercy against a helpless opponent doesn't require any faith in his father, as long as his father can no longer fight back.
And remember the emperor's earlier boasting: "I am a helpless target, kill me and you'll join the dark side". Same thing when Vader is the helpless victim.
About Obi-Wan and Leia, it doesn't matter if the comparison is between two characters. These characters represent their respective affiliations.
Except Leia doesn't represent her affiliation because other members of the rebellion don't act the same way. You can't just designate Leia as the Official Rebel Leader and dismiss anyone who does something different.
It wasn't a matter of Yoda giving Luke advice. He did not say, it is a bad idea for you to go to Bespin. He predicted, if you go to Bespin you can help your friends but you will destroy everything they have worked for. Yoda predicted, as a matter of looking into the future using the Force, "if X then Y" -- Luke did X and Y did not occur. "You aren't ready to fight Vader," is good advice. "You will destroy everything they have worked for," turns out to be flat out wrong. Which means Yoda's connection to the Force is still clouded after all these years or he was just trying to coerce Luke into staying through fear. Either way, looks bad for Yoda.
Regarding the cave vision and the throne room scene, our difference comes down to you only acknowledging one half of the arc -- Luke recognizing the darkness within himself. The other half is that Luke recognizes the good within his father. Luke says this a bunch of different times in RotJ as he struggles with the idea. By the end of the movie, Vader confirms that Luke is correct about this. If you miss this point, you have missed the point of RotJ and honestly the spiritual/moral arc of the entire trilogy.
SW is not a story about a farmboy who goes on a quest for revenge as you have suggested.
SW is actually a story about how a son becomes a hero by redeeming his father.
Leia certainly represents the Alliance. That's why she is the one who gives out medals. Even on Hoth, she sets the example: she is not the only Rebel holding out in the command bunker as the ceiling is crumbling in on them.
In response to the OP, my advice would be to enjoy the Star Wars films for what they are - an enjoyable way of passing a few hours watching a film or playing one of the video games set in the Star wars universe.
Yes, Disney are in it for the money. Yes, the films are set up to flog a few toys.
And yes, Star wars falls apart under any serious scrutiny when you analyse it's narrative and its place within the sci-fi canon.
Manchu wrote: The Empire itself is very clearly evil. A lot of non-evil people, however, are caught up in the ranks.
I slightly disagree with the first part.
Not everyone sees the evil the Empire propagates. Most see nothing at all beyond the news releases that the empire scrubs, and since most never leave their home planet nobody really notices the control over galactic news.
They're sort of like the Nazis in WW2. Even the people in Germany weren't aware of what exactly was going on in the concentration camps.
Whether a regime is evil is not a matter of how many people are aware of the evil things it does.
Grey Templar wrote: They're sort of like the Nazis in WW2. Even the people in Germany weren't aware of what exactly was going on in the concentration camps.
Well, let's set aside the question of how much ordinary Germans knew. In Star Wars, how many people does it take to crew the Death Star? Just a rough estimate will suffice. And how many of them do you think have no idea what the purpose of the Death Star is?
Alpharius wrote: That's what makes the original trilogy so good...and what helps it to stand the test of time as well as it does.
As long as parents have children and children have parents, the OT will be relevant. By contrast, the PT is so much more convoluted. It kind of makes sense when you think about what was going on with the culture that produced it. But I wonder how people in other countries interpreted it or how people who weren't alive/aware during the turn of the century interpret it. I have heard younger people, not little kids mind but teenagers, say they don't see what is so wrong with Jar Jar Binks.
Manchu wrote: I wonder how people in other countries interpreted it or how people who weren't alive/aware during the turn of the century interpret it. I have heard younger people, not little kids mind but teenagers, say they don't see what is so wrong with Jar Jar Binks.
Yes, and I am going to have to ask that question right here. Why all the hate for Jar Jar? He had a funny voice which I guess you could find annoying, but does that justify so much dislike?
Manchu wrote: I wonder how people in other countries interpreted it or how people who weren't alive/aware during the turn of the century interpret it. I have heard younger people, not little kids mind but teenagers, say they don't see what is so wrong with Jar Jar Binks.
Yes, and I am going to have to ask that question right here.
Why all the hate for Jar Jar? He had a funny voice which I guess you could find annoying, but does that justify so much dislike?
It has a lot to with expectations. Pop culture in the US at the time was just entering the darker, character-arc-driven phase we take for granted today, which was totally suitable for the story of how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. Instead, we got a little kid seemingly made from cardboard and an amphibioid Bugs Bunny.
Before the destruction of Alderaan, we're treated to the cold blooded murders of Owen and Beru Lars (and the Jawas before them) for no other reason than being casually associated with rebel assets.
That's what settled the Empire as "evil" for me. It is not some stylized, space-operatic act of evil, but a low, dirty, all too human one. The kind of act we've seen commited by terrorist groups, death squads and occupying armies throughout our history.
what the sort of thing that happened in Vietnam?
Sadly in war even the best trained and supervised tend to overeact when there is a perception (right or wrong) that a civilian population might be helping out their insurgents/terrorists
The massacre at the Lars farmstead has nothing to do with Vietnam. There was no insurgency. The storm troopers had not even been under fire yet. They were looking for droids. Owen and Beru had no reason to hide the droids but they weren't there at the time. There really is no explanation for the storm troopers murdering them except the Empire is freaking evil. That is certainly the point of the scene.
Manchu wrote: The massacre at the Lars farmstead has nothing to do with Vietnam. There was no insurgency. The storm troopers had not even been under fire yet. They were looking for droids. Owen and Beru had no reason to hide the droids but they weren't there at the time. There really is no explanation for the storm troopers murdering them except the Empire is freaking evil. That is certainly the point of the scene.
I think we're having the same conversation on two threads
But,
If you see evil as evil, and good as good, then that's always a dangerous way to look at things. Even Palpatine wouldn't have started off as wholly evil I wish star wars had more shades of grey in it.
And that's the problem with the force. They talk about balance, but what they really mean is good winning all the time. Balance would be an equal number of Jedi and an equal number of Sith.
I'm no expert on Star Wars history, but has there ever been somebody at one with the force who was neither a Jedi or a Sith, but simply 'neutral?'
But read at your own peril. This approaches or even equals midichlorian levels of stupidity. And it's canon!
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: If you see evil as evil, and good as good, then that's always a dangerous way to look at things.
The only danger of seeing the murder of Owen and Beru as evil is the danger of understanding the scene.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Arguably, the balance sought is not between Jedi and Sith but between selfishness and selflessness, i.e., between the imminent and the transcendent.
But read at your own peril. This approaches or even equals midichlorian levels of stupidity. And it's canon!
Midichlorians still canon? Between that and the vaudeville racial stereotyping of aliens Phantom Menace ruined any enjoyment I could get from the prequels. Sure, RotJ and the ensuing Ewok movies pulled the vibe from the more serious ESB to straight up kid movies but at least they stayed consistent to the basic foundation put fourth in IV.
I hope there are Eworks in VII, if the Rebels were smart they'd have legions of Ewoks fighting for them, those guys are like little furry Fremen, massacring storm troopers.
It's important to note that Rebels (which is canon) has sort of retconned midichlorians though. Kanan makes it clear that they don't cause the Force, but rather are attracted to its energies. Its energies being most prevalent (apparently) in those that can actually use the Force.
It's important to note that Rebels (which is canon) has sort of retconned midichlorians though. Kanan makes it clear that they don't cause the Force, but rather are attracted to its energies. Its energies being most prevalent (apparently) in those that can actually use the Force.
So Rebels is trying to back off the Parasite Eve plaigarism from Phantom Menace? Well, it's a step in the right direction.
Manchu wrote: It is easy enough to ignore the midichlorians ... until you remember they are Anakin's father!
If I ignore the whole PT as non-canon, then it doesn't matter who Anakin's father is. It only matters who Luke's father is. And we already know who that was.
This reply is directed at Manchu as well as Flashman.
Thanks for the link, but it still doesn't clear up my initial puzzlement over 'neutral' force users.
I don't know if you're familiar with Michael Moorcock's eternal champion series (Elric, Von Bek etc)
but in that series you have the forces of law (which I suppose could be the Jedi) and the forces of Chaos, which could represent the Sith.
Then of course you have the cosmic balance and his agent, the eternal champion, making sure that the balance never tilts in favour of one side.
These 'gray' Jedi seem to be people who can't be bothered with the Jedi council, rather than agents of neutrality being pro-active, and making sure that one side never holds the balance of power.
Manchu wrote: What do you guys like about Rebels so far?
- Feels very "early Lucasfilm." It has the same sorta adventure elements that the original trilogy and, to some extent, Indiana Jones did.
- Feels like it fits really well with the Original trilogy in regards to theme and spirit.
- Voice acting is really solid. And I thought I wouldn't like Prinze Jr.
- Ezra has grown significantly as a character and it feels right. Had Anakin Skywalker grown in Episodes 1-3 like Ezra has through the first season, I think people would like 1-3 much, much better.
- Fun new lightsaber designs. Lightsaber with a blaster built in. Spinning lightsaber. Both full of win.
- Animation is top notch.
- Story line about the birth of the Rebellion feels organic, and I personally love the reveal of those behind it.
It struck me as ... dumbed down? I remember seeing episodes of the Clone Wars and thinking, golly this is pretty tense for a show on Cartoon Network. But seeing the kid use his energy slingshot, it just made me roll my eyes.
Manchu wrote: It struck me as ... dumbed down? I remember seeing episodes of the Clone Wars and thinking, golly this is pretty tense for a show on Cartoon Network. But seeing the kid use his energy slingshot, it just made me roll my eyes.
You may have missed my post addendum -- balancing the Force is not about counting up Jedi versus Sith victories or something. The balance is between imminent and transcendent/self and no-self.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ahtman wrote: I suppose what I liked about Rebels was seeing Stormtroopers, Tie-Fighters, and ISD's again. Brings a tear to my eye.
Yeah I was really excited about all that stuff, too. Very cool!
You may have missed my post addendum -- balancing the Force is not about counting up Jedi versus Sith victories or something. The balance is between imminent and transcendent/self and no-self.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ahtman wrote: I suppose what I liked about Rebels was seeing Stormtroopers, Tie-Fighters, and ISD's again. Brings a tear to my eye.
Yeah I was really excited about all that stuff, too. Very cool!
Sure but that is a different point. I am just trying to explain that the balance issue was not between Jedi and Sith on a score board like you seemed to be thinking.
I've been watching too many episodes of Game of Thrones. I see treachery everywhere, brother against brother, allies turning on each other...you get the picture
Manchu wrote: It struck me as ... dumbed down? I remember seeing episodes of the Clone Wars and thinking, golly this is pretty tense for a show on Cartoon Network. But seeing the kid use his energy slingshot, it just made me roll my eyes.
Manchu wrote: No, the episodes I watched felt too cartoony in a bad way.
I have a shocking revelation for you, so stay with me here... it is a cartoon... for kids... on a kids television network.
Look, we are all adults (more or less ) that love Star Wars. For instance, I have a Star Wars tattoo, a display cabinet full of Star Wars models and toys, I have lightsabers and movie posters and other art hanging on my wall, almost all of my tee-shirts are Star Wars related, my daughters and I watch the Original Trilogy at least once a week together, I read them Star Wars-themed books before bed every night... I seriously fething love Star Wars.
But let us not forget, even for a second, that Star Wars is at its very core a children's fairy tale set in outer space. That is why is so endearing to multiple generations.
Whether a regime is evil is not a matter of how many people are aware of the evil things it does.
Grey Templar wrote: They're sort of like the Nazis in WW2. Even the people in Germany weren't aware of what exactly was going on in the concentration camps.
Well, let's set aside the question of how much ordinary Germans knew. In Star Wars, how many people does it take to crew the Death Star? Just a rough estimate will suffice. And how many of them do you think have no idea what the purpose of the Death Star is?
To borrow from a great clip:
"We serve on the Death Star. It is a star of death. Are we the baddies?"
Whether a regime is evil is not a matter of how many people are aware of the evil things it does.
Definitely. But my point was that most people in the galaxy won't be aware of the evil.
Grey Templar wrote: They're sort of like the Nazis in WW2. Even the people in Germany weren't aware of what exactly was going on in the concentration camps.
Well, let's set aside the question of how much ordinary Germans knew. In Star Wars, how many people does it take to crew the Death Star? Just a rough estimate will suffice. And how many of them do you think have no idea what the purpose of the Death Star is?
I doubt the people crewing the Death Star had any illusions to what its purpose was, but I also imagine they were heavily screened and constantly monitored.
Putting aside the Expanded Universe, which George Lucas repeatedly said wasn't canon, the ending of Star Wars Return of the Jedi is extremely clear cut. The only two sith in the galaxy are dead. The Empire, we can see has been overthrown as our heroes celebrate and we even see the crowds of cheering people on the streets of Coruscant. However, Disney is making it very clear that not only is this not the case, but, in 30 years the rebel alliance has completely failed to achieve any kind of gains. It has not retaken Coruscant, it has not formed the New Republic and apparently is actually staring defeat in the face from whats been gleaned so far.
Firstly, its a clear and shameless retcon of the ending of a great trilogy to milk it and make more films. It also shatters my suspension of disbelief since a war lasting thirty years is just dumb
Secondly, even the expanded universe makes it clear that after five years that the rebels have most of the galaxy and formed the New Republic on Coruscant. They WON the Galactic Civil War and the remaining Imperial Remnants though they repeatedly constitute a mortal threat to the nascent New Republic the power balance definitely shifts. Remember, the rebels ultimate goal is to restore the Republic and Jedi Order; they would not want to remain perpetually as rebels because they see the Empire as illegitimate. And it after just 20 years, the Imperial Remnant is basically contained to a small part of the now Republic held galaxy.
Finally, it indicates that Disney is absolutely obsessed with making these films as much like the original trilogy as possible. Same cast, same setting, everything. They do not want to try anything new and this is a bad thing for any film franchise to do. If even a mild thing like, progressing the plot after the defeat of the Emperor is so unthinkable to them because then we wouldn't have BIG scary empire versus rebels. Even though games and stories like Knights and The Old Republic have shown that you can tell an excellent Star Wars tale without being totally hidebound to the setup of the original film. In TOR both factions are well matched in power for example as they 're locked in a mortal struggle of light versus darkness.
Unless you have a child's understanding of how oppressive reigemes' work, simply killing the president doesn't cause an Empire, certainly not one that spans most of the galaxy, to collapse. The Emperor is dead, Darth Vader is dead, and the Death Star II is destroyed. All that means is somebody else steps in and takes Palpatine's place and resumes the war against the Rebel Alliance. And of course the Rebel Alliance is not going to make major gains. It's a galactic Civil War. This is going to be a bloody, gruesome conflict cutting across the entire galaxy, and even in ROTJ the Rebellion is absolutely dwarfed by the size of the Empire and its logistical train.
So it's not Disney's fault that they don't live in a delusional world where killing the big bad wins the day. It's yours for having such thoughts in the first place. The GCW was never and never did end overnight. Just as it was in the EU, it's going to be a long, drawn out engagement as the Rebels take small bites out of the Galactic Empire.
It's true that when Caesar defeated Pompey, the Roman civil war did not end. Caesar still had to campaign in Egypt, North Africa, and Spain, before he won the day.
And I agree with the point that Palpatine's and Vader's death does not signify the collapse of the empire. Some systems will fight on, some will join the rebels, and others will revert back to their pre-Republic days of being independent.
The vacuum will be filled.
But on the other hand, totalitarian regimes tend to die quickly when their time is up. East Germany disappeared quickly, the Soviet Union not far behind.
Also, success breeds success. More systems, logically, would join the rebels as they're the side making the gains, and would thus, shorten the war.
Shorten the war, yes. But short is relative. When you are involving a galaxy with millions of planets that could still lead to a war lasting hundreds or thousands of years.
Manchu wrote: About how long did the Clone Wars last?
Sweeping galaxy-wide change in SW can be pretty quick.
Except the Clone Wars was a gag war orchestrated by Palpatine while he fed both sides information. The Clone Wars wasn't even so much of a war as it was a puppet show.
Grey Templar wrote: Shorten the war, yes. But short is relative. When you are involving a galaxy with millions of planets that could still lead to a war lasting hundreds or thousands of years.
Rebels don't need to capture all of the galaxy. They could simply declare the Republic in the systems they hold, and encourage other systems to join them or capture more.
For example, Britain controlled big chunks of the USA during the revolution, but that never stopped John Adams and Benjamin Franklin declaring independence.
Manchu wrote: Even so it was the means by which Palpatine radically changed the galactic government.
Which is pretty easy when you can leak information to both factions of where their leaders are. Like Palpatine informing Anakin that some nonexistent Clone spies discovered Grievous on Utapau. We can't be sure if any campaigns were natural occurrences or Palpatine stringing both the Republic and CIS along.
The question is, about how long does it take to complete change the way the galaxy is governed. The canonical answer is, from about the end of Episode I to the beginning of Episode IV. What is that, forty some years?
And keep in mind, the Empire is the exception not the rule. The Republic stood for a long, long time. The Empire could easily be an anomaly in terms of how the galactic politics "naturally" function.
Manchu wrote: The question is, about how long does it take to complete change the way the galaxy is governed. The canonical answer is, from about the end of Episode I to the beginning of Episode IV. What is that, forty some years?
And keep in mind, the Empire is the exception not the rule. The Republic stood for a long, long time. The Empire could easily be an anomaly in terms of how the galactic politics "naturally" function.
Change can happen quickly, though.
Another historical example. Look at the stalemate of World War one, then compare it to how quickly it ended when the British started mass deploying tanks.
In Star Wars, you have the Death Star, which was a war winning weapon until the rebels blew it up. Maybe the rebels have a similar weapon?
The Death Star did not really change much about how quickly the Republic transformed into the Empire, however, except that it provided the basis for the Tarkin Doctrine and the final vestige of the Republic (the Imperial Senate finally being swept away).
Manchu wrote: It has a lot to with expectations. Pop culture in the US at the time was just entering the darker, character-arc-driven phase we take for granted today, which was totally suitable for the story of how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. Instead, we got a little kid seemingly made from cardboard and an amphibioid Bugs Bunny.
Jar Jar is worse because the expectations for Episode I were even higher than the expectations for RotJ. Oh and RotJ is overall a much better film than Phantom Menace, even considering the Ewoks. Jar Jar became kind of the mascot for everything that was wrong with Episode I, which is pretty much everything.
Personally, and I know this is an unpopular opinion, I enjoyed the prequels. Although I was quite young when I watched them (I was like 10-12 or so) so that might have something to do with it. I'll have to watch them all, see how they stand up after 10 years.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Personally, and I know this is an unpopular opinion, I enjoyed the prequels. Although I was quite young when I watched them (I was like 10-12 or so) so that might have something to do with it. I'll have to watch them all, see how they stand up after 10 years.
My advice? Hold onto the good memories, and don't watch them.
Because of his speech patterns and continual slap stick routines Jar Jar comes off as a minstrel show type character. He appeals to little kids as they don't make the connection but he pissed off a lot of adults that found him ranging from annoying, to outright insulting as some people feel he's virtually wearing blackface.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Personally, and I know this is an unpopular opinion, I enjoyed the prequels. Although I was quite young when I watched them (I was like 10-12 or so) so that might have something to do with it. I'll have to watch them all, see how they stand up after 10 years.
My advice? Hold onto the good memories, and don't watch them.
I'm in a similar camp to Co'tor here; I grew up with the prequels and while they were new and I was younger, they were anazing. The release of a new Star Wars film was the highlight of the year, watching the movies was an event rather than just a film, and I spent uncountable hours playing/reading/watching anything Star Wars I could get my hands on. I owe those films, or at least, the films my younger self thought he was watching, so much of my childhood that it's hard to dismiss them so entirely. If it weren't for the effect those films has on me, I wouldn't be this excited for VII, I probably would never have got into Star Trek, Dr Who, Firefly or 40k, and I certainly wouldn't be the person I am today without Star Wars, prequels and all.
And that, I think, is why I have such high hopes for The Force Awakens. Everything we've seen so far looks like it will be the Star Wars I always thought I was watching, with the brilliance and fun of the OT combined with the undoubtedly fantastic visuals of the prequels. I genuinely won't be surprised if, come December, I have a new favourite Star Wars film...
Manchu wrote: Don't get me wrong, the Ewoks were just terrible.
Jar Jar is worse because the expectations for Episode I were even higher than the expectations for RotJ. Oh and RotJ is overall a much better film than Phantom Menace, even considering the Ewoks. Jar Jar became kind of the mascot for everything that was wrong with Episode I, which is pretty much everything.
Episode I's horrible-ness is largely overblown compared to Episode II. Or at least compared to the dialogue, specifically the romance dialogue. I hate romantic movies, yet even I know those lines were absolute gak. Every time I watch Episode II, I always end up asking the unfortunate person watching it with me (dog, human, insect, etc) who the hell talks like that?
Co'tor Shas wrote: Personally, and I know this is an unpopular opinion, I enjoyed the prequels. Although I was quite young when I watched them (I was like 10-12 or so) so that might have something to do with it. I'll have to watch them all, see how they stand up after 10 years.
My advice? Hold onto the good memories, and don't watch them.
I made the mistake of rewatching all the star wars films last year, and they were not as great as I'd remembered them being. I can forgive the original trilogy much however, and it still stands far better than the prequels, which managed to be even worse than I remembered.
It doesn't help that the CG has not aged well...at all.
I plan on enjoying the new movies. I'll keep in mind that they are, and always were, childrens' movies. I will suspend my disbelief enough to cover minor plot holes, especially given that I am already accepting magic and ludicrous science as fact.
I am excited about the rise of new Sith, especially since the eternal and continued resurrection of the Sith is inevitable, given what we know of the Force.
I will not let the lens of nostalgia compel me to elevate the old films to an undeserved pedestal, and will not compare the new films to them.
It seems like there's a lot of enjoyment to be had with the new trilogy, and I for one am super-excited.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Personally, and I know this is an unpopular opinion, I enjoyed the prequels. Although I was quite young when I watched them (I was like 10-12 or so) so that might have something to do with it. I'll have to watch them all, see how they stand up after 10 years.
My advice? Hold onto the good memories, and don't watch them.
I made the mistake of rewatching all the star wars films last year, and they were not as great as I'd remembered them being. I can forgive the original trilogy much however, and it still stands far better than the prequels, which managed to be even worse than I remembered.
It doesn't help that the CG has not aged well...at all.
Yeah, same. I find that the big difference between the two is just how re-watchable they are. The originals are fun, light-hearted action movies, without any flaws big enough to overwhelm that (although I will admit that the pretty visuals are probably the only "strong" point). In contrast, the prequels have some obvious flaws, and the visuals have aged poorly.
Personally, I think we'll see the Empire was immediately handed to Palpatine's chubby, moon-faced, cheese-scarfing son, who was kept a secret from the galaxy and only revealed on his father's death. Emperor Palpat-un.
And I agree with the point that Palpatine's and Vader's death does not signify the collapse of the empire. Some systems will fight on, some will join the rebels, and others will revert back to their pre-Republic days of being independent.
The vacuum will be filled.
But on the other hand, totalitarian regimes tend to die quickly when their time is up. East Germany disappeared quickly, the Soviet Union not far behind.
Also, success breeds success. More systems, logically, would join the rebels as they're the side making the gains, and would thus, shorten the war.
One could also use Iraq and ISIS/ISIL as an example. you have a "totalitarian" power in place, some "rebels" (who, in this case happen to be more powerful than the Emperor) knocks him out leaving a power vacuum which will be filled... Now, the "rebels" are looking at a faction that is far worse than the one they just deposed.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Now, the "rebels" are looking at a faction that is far worse than the one they just deposed.
That is a really good idea. The Empire was terrible but also fairly ineffective and predictable. The First Order, however, are ultra-violent and basically insane. That could really work.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Now, the "rebels" are looking at a faction that is far worse than the one they just deposed.
That is a really good idea. The Empire was terrible but also fairly ineffective and predictable. The First Order, however, are ultra-violent and basically insane. That could really work.
Indeed.
Sure, the Emperor was bad but at least he kept some decent order. His fanatical underlings who took over don't have his restraint or vision.
The other issue that's different in the SW universe is that in our history - most rebellions are actually supported by other powers who are actively or secretly fighting the ruling power - for instance the American Revolotion would not haev succeeded without the massive French support against their old enemy.
Mr Morden wrote: The other issue that's different in the SW universe is that in our history - most rebellions are actually supported by other powers who are actively or secretly fighting the ruling power - for instance the American Revolotion would not haev succeeded without the massive French support against their old enemy.
This isn't true.
French help accelerated the revolution, but it wasn't responsible for its success. The British were already massively overextended across the globe and were losing. It just made the rebellion's success inevitable instead of probable.
The real reason for the Rebellion's success was Britain was going into huge debt to take back the colonies and the war was unpopular with the citizens whose votes actually counted.
By the time the rebellion was over, England was the equivalent of over £40 billion in debt(todays money)
Grey Templar wrote: The real reason for the Rebellion's success was Britain was going into huge debt to take back the colonies and the war was unpopular with the citizens whose votes actually counted.
Sort of. It was certainly a factor, but the UK has fought far costlier wars for much longer. Nor was the UK the only nation that plunged in to debt over the conflict (and the French Indian Wars before then), and they all carried on, with military not economic defeat leading each to abandon their various causes. And money was an even more serious issue for the United States, a problem they relieved largely through loans from France.
Had those loans not been made, and had the French not committed to contesting British naval blockades, I don’t think we can conclude US victory was ‘probable’.
By the time the rebellion was over, England was the equivalent of over £40 billion in debt(todays money)
Heh, if the UK had debt of £40 billion today they'd have fits of joy.
You expect a government that spans the Galaxy to be toppled in a short period of time? A Moff can rise up. The rebellion is weakened, and part of the plot has been believed that Luke turns (and may have created an apprentice in the 25 years time, imagine that!!). We don't have enough fact, just lots of snippets. Abrams loves Star Wars. I expect him to do that love justice.
Grey Templar wrote: I don't think Luke has turned. All the desire for that seems way over blown and wishful thinking, no evidence to support it.
I can totally believe that he has had apprentices turn to the dark side
I kind of agree here... I mean, even in the EU, Luke's turning (and returning) were very dramatic, but overall seemed like a short blip on the galactic radar.
Though, in the case of Ep. 7, I get a feeling that Rylo or whatever his name is, isn't a former apprentice of Luke's but something that is as close to an actual Sith as we can get, unless there's a "Force Unleashed" type of plot introduced somewhere in the upcoming movie (as in, Kylo was a secret apprentice to Vader before his death, and he's spent the intervening years hunting down Sidious' knowledge horde, etc)
Yeah, it makes more sense for a spontaneous Sith to arise given the canon nature of the force.
Someone with power in the force is born, the Dark Side is drawn to them, it tells them the location of some ancient Sith knowledge cache or facility, and that person becomes the next Sith lord.
Honestly thinking of the Rebellion against the Empire in the context of a single world's warfare is not using a very accurate model.
The Empire certainly has political and administrative control over larger portions of the Galaxy, but we're shown at several points that it's not all, and even within the blanket of that control there are large factions, entire worlds and groups of the same that are reluctant members, or under Imperial control mostly in name, or are in open/passive rebellion. (Mon Calamari, Bothuwi and Alderaan for example).
KalashnikovMarine wrote: Honestly thinking of the Rebellion against the Empire in the context of a single world's warfare is not using a very accurate model.
The Empire certainly has political and administrative control over larger portions of the Galaxy, but we're shown at several points that it's not all, and even within the blanket of that control there are large factions, entire worlds and groups of the same that are reluctant members, or under Imperial control mostly in name, or are in open/passive rebellion. (Mon Calamari, Bothuwi and Alderaan for example).
Indeed, the Empire had a tenuous hold at best. Likely due to the vast bulk of its forces being engaged simply occupying its massive territory. Only a relatively small portion was free to go on the offensive. And even then, the areas they did control were never under total domination.
There is also the limitations of Hyperspace travel. Certain areas of the Galaxy are difficult to access, like Mon Calimari.
Most likely what happened was the following,
After the Emperor died, the remaining leaders voluntarily abandoned certain systems so they could concentrate their forces in important areas. This would see the rebels quickly gain a bunch of systems and reestablish the republic, but those that did remain Imperial would have much more troops defending them, and the Empire would have far more troops to dedicate to offensive operations. Thus easily leading to a long drawn out war that isn't going to end any time soon.
So something like this: Say the Empire previously occupied 10 worlds. They pull back from 5 of them and use half the excess troops to strengthen garrisons and the other half to add to their offensive operations. And if those 5 worlds weren't super important anyway you come out ahead.
Alderaan is kind of a bad example, since they don't get to rebel for very long
Approximately two decades or so.
And Grey, my understanding says it's slightly more control then that, but less then what most people assume. For example the Outer Rim worlds like Tatooine had some Stormtroopers and officials, but as long as taxes were paid, not much of a gak was given. Alien worlds were either ignored completely or enslaved (Sullust and Kashyyyk)
I think what really bothers me, is how even in the movies the Empire is described. Not in terms of power but in terms of culture. This isn't an issue with The Mouse, so much as an issue with Lucas. The Clone Wars don't begin till 22 BBY thanks to the Prequel series, and the New Order is declared and Order 66 is issued 19 BBY. In that time frame the Empire has to finish exterminating the Jedi, consolidate it's power, reorganize itself and the massive bureaucracy under it's control, establish widespread alien discrimination to the point of it seeming generational, build a massive fleet of Star Destroyers and the Death Star, and give Ewan Mcgregor enough time to start looking like Sir Alec Guinness and spend a stupid amount of time on Tatooine enough to A. be part of local lore and B. be presumed dead some years back, so he can die in 0 BBY. (So Palpatine was Emperor for approximately 30 years before his death in 11 ABY)
I'm sorry. That's a plot hole big enough to safely navigate the Lusankya through without worrying about your port and starboard tolerances.
In the following spoiler I fix the plot hole AND make the prequels better, but it's all just my opinion and fan ranting and can be safely ignored by pretty much everyone who doesn't hate the prequels as much as I do.
Spoiler:
So in addition to rewriting the entire prequel series to make them awesome, namely making the word "midichlorians" a word punishable by a 60 year term on Kessel, and making sure gungans only exist as a strange concept, I'd space it the feth out.
30 years between the rise of the Empire and the Battle of Yavin at a bare minimum.
So how do you make that work with Luke and Leia? You get dark. Instead of Darth Vader immediately getting the suit, make it a long process, the slow corruption and death of Anakin Skywalker instead of a quick scene of him killing some Jedi bratlings and fighting Obi Wan. Make it personal, especially to the characters all three movies should have focused on. Obi Wan and Anakin. As far as Padme, if you establish the relationship post rise, have her stay with Anakin. There's dark paths for that and then there's grimdark options, the former being "I'll raze Naboo to the ground if you don't" and the latter being... unpleasant things involving the Force, and it's only as more and more of the flesh of the man that was Anakin Skywalker withers and dies (maybe Obi Wan took an arm or something when he escaped for the big fight scene) and is replaced with a machine, in 19 BBY when Padme finds out she's pregnant and some terrible gak went down on Naboo any way (Exterminate those damn amphibians. An Imperial policy I can personally support) so she leaves and manages to deliver her new born children into the hands of Bail Organa and Obi Wan before returning to face Vader's wrath, her ship is subsequently destroyed before she can even open a comm channel. You could handle all of that last bit in a near post script. Fifteen odd minutes of film if you get creative with your presentation and editing.
Phantom Menace: Establish Anakin, a prodigy and extremely brash young padawan, and Obi Wan a seasoned Jedi Knight who's training his first apprentice, intrigue and plots, if you must establish Padme, and set up Dooku as the primary bad guy behind the droid armies /now/ A. to make use of a fantastic actor and cool character, and B. because the Neimoidians were boring, as are trade disputes. Keep Maul. Maybe don't kill him off immediately? Starts of the over all Palpatine intrigue, a taste though. Establish Anakin's authority issues/attitude issues now. By end of film reveal the Separatists or establish at the very least that many worlds are unhappy with Republic rule and there's evidence of ramped up military production/organization.
Attack of the Clones: Anakin and Obi Wan are more seasoned, with the latter being upgraded to Master in between films or late in Menace. Investigate the intrigue threads as team, held back significantly by the Jedi council. Some brash action set pieces, the Separatists announce their break off, not by trying to kill one senator and a couple Jedi but attacking multiple Republic outposts and declaring so. Cut to the cool parts of that movie, now cut in with the third starting some of the major battles now, because a Galaxy spanning war shouldn't properly be set off with one engagement on one planet from a strategic or depiction sense. Also gives us some more time to get to know some of the Jedi we're getting to know, Anakin resents the council for hindering Obi Wan and his investigation because it could have prevented the war, and doesn't think a bunch of doddering old men are going to really know how to fight the war "they" started because of their failure to act or investigate more seriously.
Revenge of the Sith: Clone wars in full swing. Battle of Coruscant, Anakin starts pursuing his own investigation into what he sees as the unresolved Sith issue, thinking that Dooku is not the real power here, regularly goes AWOL or behind the council's back for Republic assistance. Palpatine encourages this significantly, gives him all the tools he needs. When it's uncovered that he's a Sith Lord, Anakin's quite swayable that the Council's attack on him is more of the Jedi master's nonsense, and that they're destroying the Republic with their inaction and internal schemes. Cue Order 66 and the rise of Darth Vader.
The Emperor had no succession plan. Vader would be the natural heir, but he was dead. Essentially, Napoleon died with no heir.
So the question is, what happens next? I think there's two logical outcomes.
1. If enough of the Moffs are of the mind to do so, the Empire breaks up into warring factions as every Grand Moff or Grand Admiral declares himself Emperor. The fleets fight each other to death.
2. What I think more likely, is that the Imperial Senate would meet and elect a Prime Minister. The majority of the Imperial Bureaucracy would continue. most of the fleets would transfer their loyalty to the new government. Essentially the Empire would continue, but in a more democratic form. There might even be a new Emperor (some relative of Palpatine), but he'd likely have no power. The senate would roll back the human domination of the government, and re-establish rights for oppressed non-human worlds. At some point humans might rise up and seize power violently again, but i doubt it.
I think these two are the most logical options, and given the presence of the Rebellion and the History of the Republic, I think number 2 is the most likely.
>I think what really bothers me, is how even in the movies the Empire is described. Not in terms of power but in terms of culture. This isn't an issue with The Mouse, so much as an issue with Lucas. The Clone Wars don't begin till 22 BBY thanks to the Prequel series, and the New Order is declared and Order 66 is issued 19 BBY. In that time frame the Empire has to finish exterminating the Jedi, consolidate it's power, reorganize itself and the massive bureaucracy under it's control, establish widespread alien discrimination to the point of it seeming generational, build a massive fleet of Star Destroyers and the Death Star, and give Ewan Mcgregor enough time to start looking like Sir Alec Guinness and spend a stupid amount of time on Tatooine enough to A. be part of local lore and B. be presumed dead some years back, so he can die in 0 BBY. (So Palpatine was Emperor for approximately 30 years before his death in 11 ABY)
Honestly, while I find fault with a lot of Star Wars in the details (and love it on the whole) I don't think this specific is that big of a deal. The Emperor didn't necessarily scrap the existing bureaucracy, he just changed the name of the Old Republic at first. He was already the Supreme Chancellor and commander in Chief. Its certainly a bit of head canon, but consider the following. Humans are a major galactic minority. They represent a powerful block, and having the Emperor as one of them means they're his natural allies. He knew this, and so he made them his power base. Humanity runs the Empire for him. They're the fleet. The army. The beauracacy. The alien discrimination is a side effect, and a way to keep them on his side. Economically, he likely taxed the hell out of alien races (as well as enslaved them) specifically so he could subsidize the Human worlds. At first he could have simply given them special favoritism. made human worlds the sector capitals and let them take over the local government bureaucracy. Later would come the oppressive taxes on non-human worlds. All the meanwhile Vader is hunting down the last of the jedi, an organization that was never large to begin with (and probably suffered heavy casualties during the clone wars).
Humans being racist towards non-Humans was not started by Palpatine, or even a side effect per se. In the lore, Humans are among the most prosperous and affluent races in the Galaxy. They are not a minority. In fact Humans and Near-Human (offshoots of the Human race) make up a significant chunk of the Galactic population. Some of the most famous are Zeltrons, Happans, Chiss, Arkanian, Dathomiri, Echani, and Zabraks. While often times physically different, all these races are essentially 'human.' Add them all up and more than a third of the galaxy's population is of Human descent and most of the galaxy's wealth and affluence is concentrated with them (and Humans/Human-offshoots are among the most force sensitive races in Star Wars).
Non-humans have always gotten the short end. The Republic barely blinked when the Mandelorians nearly wiped out the Cathar. Wookie and Twi-Lek slave trading is commonplace even in time periods where slavery is supposed to be illegal. The Republic cared a lot less when non-humans were in Crisis (this is covered in some of the 'young Yoda' story lines and was a significant reason why Yoda and the Order under him distrusted politicians).
Now why Palpatine encouraged racism is a bit more complicated. Lore has long established that the Sith are themselves fairly racist, but against whom and too what degree varies by author. The very first force users on Tython were a Human race, and thus the force users who eventually became the Sith Order, were also human. Throw in that they valued heavily the strength of their bloodline to the original Sith race early on as a major part of their culture, and you've set the groundwork for the Sith Order as a very racist organization overly concerned with where genes are coming from. Even long after Sith blood has basically faded to nothingness they were still profoundly racist. Focus had just shifted away from being Sith genetically to basically human.
So in addition to rewriting the entire prequel series to make them awesome, namely making the word "midichlorians" a word punishable by a 60 year term on Kessel, and making sure gungans only exist as a strange concept, I'd space it the feth out.
30 years between the rise of the Empire and the Battle of Yavin at a bare minimum.
So how do you make that work with Luke and Leia? You get dark. Instead of Darth Vader immediately getting the suit, make it a long process, the slow corruption and death of Anakin Skywalker instead of a quick scene of him killing some Jedi bratlings and fighting Obi Wan. Make it personal, especially to the characters all three movies should have focused on. Obi Wan and Anakin. As far as Padme, if you establish the relationship post rise, have her stay with Anakin. There's dark paths for that and then there's grimdark options, the former being "I'll raze Naboo to the ground if you don't" and the latter being... unpleasant things involving the Force, and it's only as more and more of the flesh of the man that was Anakin Skywalker withers and dies (maybe Obi Wan took an arm or something when he escaped for the big fight scene) and is replaced with a machine, in 19 BBY when Padme finds out she's pregnant and some terrible gak went down on Naboo any way (Exterminate those damn amphibians. An Imperial policy I can personally support) so she leaves and manages to deliver her new born children into the hands of Bail Organa and Obi Wan before returning to face Vader's wrath, her ship is subsequently destroyed before she can even open a comm channel. You could handle all of that last bit in a near post script. Fifteen odd minutes of film if you get creative with your presentation and editing.
Phantom Menace: Establish Anakin, a prodigy and extremely brash young padawan, and Obi Wan a seasoned Jedi Knight who's training his first apprentice, intrigue and plots, if you must establish Padme, and set up Dooku as the primary bad guy behind the droid armies /now/ A. to make use of a fantastic actor and cool character, and B. because the Neimoidians were boring, as are trade disputes. Keep Maul. Maybe don't kill him off immediately? Starts of the over all Palpatine intrigue, a taste though. Establish Anakin's authority issues/attitude issues now. By end of film reveal the Separatists or establish at the very least that many worlds are unhappy with Republic rule and there's evidence of ramped up military production/organization.
Attack of the Clones: Anakin and Obi Wan are more seasoned, with the latter being upgraded to Master in between films or late in Menace. Investigate the intrigue threads as team, held back significantly by the Jedi council. Some brash action set pieces, the Separatists announce their break off, not by trying to kill one senator and a couple Jedi but attacking multiple Republic outposts and declaring so. Cut to the cool parts of that movie, now cut in with the third starting some of the major battles now, because a Galaxy spanning war shouldn't properly be set off with one engagement on one planet from a strategic or depiction sense. Also gives us some more time to get to know some of the Jedi we're getting to know, Anakin resents the council for hindering Obi Wan and his investigation because it could have prevented the war, and doesn't think a bunch of doddering old men are going to really know how to fight the war "they" started because of their failure to act or investigate more seriously.
Revenge of the Sith: Clone wars in full swing. Battle of Coruscant, Anakin starts pursuing his own investigation into what he sees as the unresolved Sith issue, thinking that Dooku is not the real power here, regularly goes AWOL or behind the council's back for Republic assistance. Palpatine encourages this significantly, gives him all the tools he needs. When it's uncovered that he's a Sith Lord, Anakin's quite swayable that the Council's attack on him is more of the Jedi master's nonsense, and that they're destroying the Republic with their inaction and internal schemes. Cue Order 66 and the rise of Darth Vader.
I agree with a lot of what you wrote here. I think having Padme stay with Anakin for a few years while he turns to evil and abuses her would be awesome from a storytelling perspective, but it would kill the idea of there being any "good" left in him for his son to exploit (after watching Anakin play the abusive spouse towards Padme for a few years of movie-time, the audience would not buy that there was any part of him worth saving). Anakin's fall needs to be sudden, but it also needs to make sense. The fall Lucas gave us wasn't a fall (Anakin of the Prequels is never "good", therefore he cannot "fall" to evil. He kinda just slouched over to evil one day after getting bored with being a petulant brat and wanting to try something more edgy.) and it didn't make sense. "My wife might be sick because of a vague dream I had... and the most evil man in the universe says he can help save her if I kill a bunch of kids... seems legit!"
What I would love to see if they re-made the Prequels is, more than anything, I would like to see the Clone Wars. Instead of the first and last 20 minutes of the war, spread accross two movies, I'd like for the Clone Wars (I'd like for there to be more than one, actually, since the bloody name is plural) to be the major background event of all three films. Kind of like how the Galactic Civil War was the major background event of the OT. And they should start in bloody media res, just like the OT. Start out with Anakin and Obi Wan both already as fully licensed and accredidted Jedi, none of this Padawan crap. I don't need to see Obi Wan train Anakin; it isn't important. What Anakin does as a Padawan isn't important. What he does as a Jedi is, and the films should start there. We don't need to see Anakin and Obi Wan become friends, we just need to see them become enemies.
Actually I think the Audience thinking Vader completely irredeemable would make more sense. I mean that was certainly the goal of throwing in a scene of Anakin killing a bunch of kids wasn't it? Everyone in the known galaxy at the time of RotJ thinks Vader is completely irredeemable except his son, Luke.
There is no Imperial Senate around to elect/declare a new emperor post-Endor. It was dissolved before the Battle of Yavin.
In the EU, Imperial muckety mucks largely turned on each other after Endor. This made sense to me when I was younger (I think one of the Zahn novels even says Palpatine purposefully had no succession plans to dissuade assassination attempts). But not so much anymore. Even without an heir apparent (and I don't think Vader was such), it would be in the interests of the Imperial hierarchy to quickly install a new head of state.
Vader was not the Hier, he was just the Master of the Horse; to use the Roman term. The guy who did all the dirty work for the Dictator, and was his right hand man. When the Dictator was gone, so was the Master of the Horse's power.
Manchu wrote: There is no Imperial Senate around to elect/declare a new emperor post-Endor. It was dissolved before the Battle of Yavin.
In the EU, Imperial muckety mucks largely turned on each other after Endor. This made sense to me when I was younger (I think one of the Zahn novels even says Palpatine purposefully had no succession plans to dissuade assassination attempts). But not so much anymore. Even without an heir apparent (and I don't think Vader was such), it would be in the interests of the Imperial hierarchy to quickly install a new head of state.
It still works if you assume Palpatine made a point of installing guys who did not want anyone other than them in charge. Kind of a "We are struggling together" thing. While Palpatines alive, you've got ambitious guys competing for position, but kept in check by the threat of imminent force-choking via Vader. Palpatine dies, Vader dies, and no-one wants to pass on the top seat to a rival. Think of Prisoners Dilemma, except Palpatine rigged the game so he's the Warden, and everyone else in the command structure is a squealer. Yeah, remaining silent (not making a power grab) is the best decision, but none of the Imperials trust each other.
Manchu wrote: There is no Imperial Senate around to elect/declare a new emperor post-Endor. It was dissolved before the Battle of Yavin.
In the EU, Imperial muckety mucks largely turned on each other after Endor. This made sense to me when I was younger (I think one of the Zahn novels even says Palpatine purposefully had no succession plans to dissuade assassination attempts). But not so much anymore. Even without an heir apparent (and I don't think Vader was such), it would be in the interests of the Imperial hierarchy to quickly install a new head of state.
It still works if you assume Palpatine made a point of installing guys who did not want anyone other than them in charge. Kind of a "We are struggling together" thing. While Palpatines alive, you've got ambitious guys competing for position, but kept in check by the threat of imminent force-choking via Vader. Palpatine dies, Vader dies, and no-one wants to pass on the top seat to a rival. Think of Prisoners Dilemma, except Palpatine rigged the game so he's the Warden, and everyone else in the command structure is a squealer. Yeah, remaining silent (not making a power grab) is the best decision, but none of the Imperials trust each other.
No, but there was still a system in place. And no amount of power playing is going to cause an immediate collapse of that system. There would be some chaos for a short time, but eventually a leader would emerge.
From what I recall for the EU, several powerful Moffs and senior officials splintered off, but for the most part the remanent just convened a governing body out of the senior loyal moffs and and military leaders once Issard was forced off Coruscant
As long as the new emperor wasn't more activist than the original one, I don't think the moffs would mind. Having an emperor would if anything shore up their own power.
Manchu wrote: There is no Imperial Senate around to elect/declare a new emperor post-Endor. It was dissolved before the Battle of Yavin.
In the EU, Imperial muckety mucks largely turned on each other after Endor. This made sense to me when I was younger (I think one of the Zahn novels even says Palpatine purposefully had no succession plans to dissuade assassination attempts). But not so much anymore. Even without an heir apparent (and I don't think Vader was such), it would be in the interests of the Imperial hierarchy to quickly install a new head of state.
Often with empires (or Kingdoms) the end of the current ruler spells civil wars for a period of time. Either the empire gets behind a new guy and a new dynasty or the empire weakens, creating a feeding frenzy as it gets worse and worse. Thats why monarchial dictatorships are more stable than militarily led empires, but even they frickasie up once and a while. In fact, I'd argue thats the natural state of human governance, not democracies.
Manchu wrote: This made sense to me when I was younger (I think one of the Zahn novels even says Palpatine purposefully had no succession plans to dissuade assassination attempts). But not so much anymore. Even without an heir apparent (and I don't think Vader was such), it would be in the interests of the Imperial hierarchy to quickly install a new head of state.
Personally, I think that Palpatine's "succession plan" was that the Empire would follow the Sith Ways. By this I mean of course that Vader would somehow conspire and plot against him, kill him and become the Emperor and find an apprentice to continue the cycle. Vader's deposing of the Emperor may temporarily embolden the Moffs or other high ranking officials to attempt to off Vader, but Vader using the Force would squash much of that in a hurry.
Hard to say what Palpatine's end game was. Judging only by RotJ, his death seems ... highly preventable. I have never bought that teddy bears could take on the Emperor's "crack troops." It makes even less sense in light of the prequels, where he is able to somehow manipulate events in the span of decades. Maybe Vader's change of heart is one of those "Sauron will never expect us to destroy the ring" type situations. Even that seems a bit strange considering how farsighted the prequels show him. Long before the prequels ever existed, his death seemed utterly implausible to certain writers, hence Dark Empire.
I agree with those who have said Palpatine wanted to attain immortality. In that case, putting a succession plan in place would be admitting failure.
Manchu wrote: Hard to say what Palpatine's end game was. Judging only by RotJ, his death seems ... highly preventable. I have never bought that teddy bears could take on the Emperor's "crack troops." It makes even less sense in light of the prequels, where he is able to somehow manipulate events in the span of decades. Maybe Vader's change of heart is one of those "Sauron will never expect us to destroy the ring" type situations. Even that seems a bit strange considering how farsighted the prequels show him. Long before the prequels ever existed, his death seemed utterly implausible to certain writers, hence Dark Empire.
I agree with those who have said Palpatine wanted to attain immortality. In that case, putting a succession plan in place would be admitting failure.
The *ONLY* explanations that I can think of is:
1) Darth Plagueis and Sidious "only" planned as far as regaining the old Sith Empire. Palpatine/Sidious had achieved that with being named Supreme Chancellor and ultimately naming himself Emperor... As such he had no further plans?
2) Having attained the goals set out in the first point, he became arrogant (as seems to be the downfall of so many leaders, fictitious and real alike) and either he stopped plotting/planning as much as when he was hungry (perhaps he lost the eye of the Tiger and needs his own Apollo to take him to a slum gym to regain it?), or the DS of the Force in essence "abandoned" him and he stopped being able to see/plot into the future?
The Tarkin novel sort of supports Hypothesis 1 ... the Emperor is portrayed as withdrawn from ruling, spending his time researching Sith stuff. Probably his continued quest for immortality, however.
Well, the Emperor had foreseen or at least set up the Rebel assault on the new Death Star. He leaked them the plans and set it up as an elaborate trap.
But as with all premonitions which we hear about throughout the series (Anakin about Padme, Yoda about what will happen if Luke goes to Cloud City etc.), he didn't get a full picture, only glimpses.
It could be he saw Han and the others get captured, knew Luke would go to Vader, knew the Rebels would commit to a major assault. So from what he had seen in his premonitions and his knowledge about troop numbers on Endor and the Death Stars operational capability, victory seemed almost certain. But he was missing important details (the Ewoks helping the Rebels) and lacked the empathy to feel Vaders repressed feelings about his son.
One of the older EU explanations is that the Emperor was very occupied throughout his rule secretly making plans to repel the coming Yuuzhan Vong invasion (which he somehow knew about decades before it even started).
Of course, those bits of the EU were also super creepy for constantly trying to portray the Emperor as the 'secret good guy' all along and Luke was a douche bag for selfishly opposing him. So part of me hopes that bit of the EU will just vanish forever
LordofHats wrote: One of the older EU explanations is that the Emperor was very occupied throughout his rule secretly making plans to repel the coming Yuuzhan Vong invasion (which he somehow knew about decades before it even started).
Of course, those bits of the EU were also super creepy for constantly trying to portray the Emperor as the 'secret good guy' all along and Luke was a douche bag for selfishly opposing him. So part of me hopes that bit of the EU will just vanish forever
Yeah, I believe it was the Chiss who encountered a Yhuuzan Vong scouting force, and they in turn relayed it to the Emperor. That was why he built things like the Death Star and other super weapons. If he could easily nuke the Yhuuzan Vong planet ships, then they wouldn't have been nearly the threat that they ended up being.
I don't think it makes him out to be a good guy in anyway shape or form though. He was still a genocidal lunatic. Just because he planned for self preservation doesn't make him a "secret good guy".
djones520 wrote: Just because he planned for self preservation doesn't make him a "secret good guy".
No, I'm referring to a tendency (at the time that material was being written) for the authors writing it to have this really passive aggressive "Luke sucks the Emperor was awesome" attitude that they tried pushing in their work. It was always the same deal; Reveal Palpatine secretly knew about X Galactic Threat to the Galaxy. Palpatine creates plan to stop threat from happening. Bash the Jedi for being short sighted hypocrites and the Old Republic for being corrupt and useless. Vaguely hint that Palpatine's not such a bad guy and totally justified in his actions from a "certain point of view."
It was insanely creepy because you know, Palpatine was a tyrannical genocidal maniac who at times literally thought he was god.
Manchu wrote: Hard to say what Palpatine's end game was. Judging only by RotJ, his death seems ... highly preventable. I have never bought that teddy bears could take on the Emperor's "crack troops." It makes even less sense in light of the prequels, where he is able to somehow manipulate events in the span of decades. Maybe Vader's change of heart is one of those "Sauron will never expect us to destroy the ring" type situations. Even that seems a bit strange considering how farsighted the prequels show him. Long before the prequels ever existed, his death seemed utterly implausible to certain writers, hence Dark Empire.
I agree with those who have said Palpatine wanted to attain immortality. In that case, putting a succession plan in place would be admitting failure.
I always thought, from the films, not EU, that Palpatines end game was his own death. He believed in the rule of two, so must have known that one day his student would want to take his place. My feeling was that he hoped to train Vader until Vader was strong enough to take the thrown through brute force. Unfortunatly for Sidious Vader was strong enough to kill him, but realized his error at the last moment. The way I see it Vader was not quite ready to be the sith lord yet. Not quite consumed by evil and not quite strong enough to kill Sidious cleanly without the mortal wound to himself. It was the realization of what he had done that drove him to take the risk rather than do it when he was powerful enough.
djones520 wrote: Just because he planned for self preservation doesn't make him a "secret good guy".
No, I'm referring to a tendency (at the time that material was being written) for the authors writing it to have this really passive aggressive "Luke sucks the Emperor was awesome" attitude that they tried pushing in their work. It was always the same deal; Reveal Palpatine secretly knew about X Galactic Threat to the Galaxy. Palpatine creates plan to stop threat from happening. Bash the Jedi for being short sighted hypocrites and the Old Republic for being corrupt and useless. Vaguely hint that Palpatine's not such a bad guy and totally justified in his actions from a "certain point of view."
It was insanely creepy because you know, Palpatine was a tyrannical genocidal maniac who at times literally thought he was god.
This sounds somewhat similar to what many of you have said about Karen Traviss' writing: Mandalorians= Teh 1337 Uber Sexeh, Jedi= eww, yucky evil people acting like the good guys.
It started with Thrawn wearing a white uniform (literally and symbolically) and culminated with Legacy, where a reformed Empire is portrayed as the "good faction." Good riddance EU!
Manchu wrote: It started with Thrawn wearing a white uniform (literally and symbolically) and culminated with Legacy, where a reformed Empire is portrayed as the "good faction." Good riddance EU!
The Empire were the good guys in Legacy? Not sure where you got that from. I mean, didn't their Emperor get deposed by a Sith who started up a new Sith Empire and started to genocide the galaxy because reasons? Didn't the deposed Emperor become so desperate to win back his throne that he tried to genocide Coruscant? Didn't he have to be killed by his own bodyguard to save the planet? Didn't the Republic actually do all the actual good guy stuff in the series?
A Town Called Malus wrote: Well, the Emperor had foreseen or at least set up the Rebel assault on the new Death Star. He leaked them the plans and set it up as an elaborate trap.
But as with all premonitions which we hear about throughout the series (Anakin about Padme, Yoda about what will happen if Luke goes to Cloud City etc.), he didn't get a full picture, only glimpses.
It could be he saw Han and the others get captured, knew Luke would go to Vader, knew the Rebels would commit to a major assault. So from what he had seen in his premonitions and his knowledge about troop numbers on Endor and the Death Stars operational capability, victory seemed almost certain. But he was missing important details (the Ewoks helping the Rebels) and lacked the empathy to feel Vaders repressed feelings about his son.
Plus why didn't he have the entire equivalent of a tank division around that shield complex, or even just a couple of machine gun posts. Come on guys...
Paradigm wrote: Thing is, though, what did the Rebels actually win in RotJ? Luke himself certainly triumphed over Vader, and Jedi beat the Sith (or at least they think they did.
Of course they won!
Just watch this scene that didn't make it into RotJ!
Again, the Empire is not a nation state. It is an entity purely made to serve the Sith. You killed the only Sith (and yes, in the films it was made clear there were only two sith) then they have literally nobody to serve and no reason to exist.
Its like saying that the Soviet Union had millions of troops and a vast amount of territory. It doesn't matter.
The Empire still has an entire non-sith bureaucracy that isn't going to let go of power just like that.
The Soviet union couldn't hold together because the Red Army ultimately wouldn't go through with the coup and violently hold the thing together.
The Empire is quite literally cartoonishly evil and doesn't give a gak about blowing up planets to make a point so I think the Bureaucracy and all of Sidious and Vader's cronies are going to be much more willing to force the whole structure to stick together even with the Dark Lords of the Sith gone.
Like, it's the reason why the Soviet Union and probably Fascist Italy could peacefully collapse while Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan weren't going to go down in any way but in flames.
squidhills wrote: If a character turns evil during a story, you can't really complain that he's the good guy.
... makes no sense ...
The issue is, the Fel Empire was good, ruled by a good dynasty of good emperors, the last of whom eventually turned bad at turning point in the story.
So your complaint is that the Empire was good before the story started (and only shown in flashbacks)? Because it was evil for pretty much the entire actual run. Believe it or not, if you'd been reading the EU novels (insert snarky comment here) the Empire becoming somewhat benevolent was a natural progression. In one of the best uses of the character, Admiral Daala realized that the Empire's racist attitudes and brutal policies were the reason it was destined to lose the war against the New Republic. She began implementing reforms that began to turn the Empire from Lawful Evil to Lawful Neutral. Han Solo's daughter married the guy who eventually became the first Emperor after Palpatine (Soontir Fel's son) and she would have used her position as Queen to push the reforms even further along. I have no problem believing that in the span of one hundred years, realistic people who aren't cartoon villains could reform a government away from evil and turn it to something good. It's not like it hasn't happened in real life.
Manchu wrote: Thanks for writing out the history of the point I originally made.
No, your point was that the Empire was the "good guys" in Legacy. They weren't. They were good guys immediately prior to Legacy, since the opening of Legacy is the Sith coup and the Empire being evil for all the rest of the issues that got made. The Empire in Legacy were the bad guys. The only ones who weren't bad, were working with the New Republic forces (under the Galactic Alliance banner). The overwhelming majority of the enemies the Republic forces killed were Imperial Stormtroopers. They shot down futuristic TIE fighters. They duelled Sith warriors. All of whom were running around calling themselves "The Empire". And the deposed ("good") Emperor turned evil during the course of the story. I'm really having a hard time seeing how the Empire were the good guys in Legacy, as you claimed.
Now, if you'd said "I don't like how Dark Horse made the Empire into a benevloent government in the backstory of Legacy" you'd be stating an opinion that I couldn't argue against, because it would be factually correct. But that isn't what you said. It might've been what you meant, but it wasn't what you said.
squidhills wrote: Believe it or not, if you'd been reading the EU novels (insert snarky comment here) the Empire becoming somewhat benevolent was a natural progression.
Manchu wrote: It started with Thrawn wearing a white uniform (literally and symbolically) and culminated with Legacy, where a reformed Empire is portrayed as the "good faction." Good riddance EU!
squidhills wrote: If a character turns evil during a story, you can't really complain that he's the good guy.
... makes no sense ...
The issue is, the Fel Empire was good, ruled by a good dynasty of good emperors, the last of whom eventually turned bad at turning point in the story.
So your complaint is that the Empire was good before the story started (and only shown in flashbacks)? Because it was evil for pretty much the entire actual run. Believe it or not, if you'd been reading the EU novels (insert snarky comment here) the Empire becoming somewhat benevolent was a natural progression. In one of the best uses of the character, Admiral Daala realized that the Empire's racist attitudes and brutal policies were the reason it was destined to lose the war against the New Republic. She began implementing reforms that began to turn the Empire from Lawful Evil to Lawful Neutral. Han Solo's daughter married the guy who eventually became the first Emperor after Palpatine (Soontir Fel's son) and she would have used her position as Queen to push the reforms even further along. I have no problem believing that in the span of one hundred years, realistic people who aren't cartoon villains could reform a government away from evil and turn it to something good. It's not like it hasn't happened in real life.
Hi, Germany!
This is the EU? No wonder Disney ditched it, like a chaperone at the school dance.
Manchu wrote: It started with Thrawn wearing a white uniform (literally and symbolically) and culminated with Legacy, where a reformed Empire is portrayed as the "good faction." Good riddance EU!
Well by the time of Legacy, the Fel Empire was a much more sympathetic faction than the Galactic Empire (and Imperial Knights are fething awesome). But I don't think there were attempts to do away with or hide that much of the current situation, was at least in part the Empire's fault and that Roan Fel was not a very nice guy. Rae, Siah, and Draco were the real "heroes" of the Empire story line in Legacy, and the later two were heavily contrasted to Roan by the story itself as a matter of course. I rather preferred the depiction of the Fel Empire, however it came about, because it ditched the "you're good or your not" circle jerk that tends to ruin so much of the EU.
squidhills wrote: If a character turns evil during a story, you can't really complain that he's the good guy.
... makes no sense ...
The issue is, the Fel Empire was good, ruled by a good dynasty of good emperors, the last of whom eventually turned bad at turning point in the story.
So your complaint is that the Empire was good before the story started (and only shown in flashbacks)? Because it was evil for pretty much the entire actual run. Believe it or not, if you'd been reading the EU novels (insert snarky comment here) the Empire becoming somewhat benevolent was a natural progression. In one of the best uses of the character, Admiral Daala realized that the Empire's racist attitudes and brutal policies were the reason it was destined to lose the war against the New Republic. She began implementing reforms that began to turn the Empire from Lawful Evil to Lawful Neutral. Han Solo's daughter married the guy who eventually became the first Emperor after Palpatine (Soontir Fel's son) and she would have used her position as Queen to push the reforms even further along. I have no problem believing that in the span of one hundred years, realistic people who aren't cartoon villains could reform a government away from evil and turn it to something good. It's not like it hasn't happened in real life.
Hi, Germany!
This is the EU? No wonder Disney ditched it, like a chaperone at the school dance.
Frazz, you have no idea. That's actually some of the passably acceptable parts of the EU.
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