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Made in us
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The Great State of Texas

This is all cleared up if you remember the prequels don't exist, and were just a collective bad dream....

-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
 
   
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Dallas area, TX

I think a major point that might be explored is that without the Jedi or Sith to gravitate towards, new force users have to find their own way.
I kinda think this is the "truth" Luke has come across. The Jedi were too strict in their views and thus blinded to the Dark side.
I really hope we get "grey jedi" in the saga films, but without "jedi" in their name.

-

   
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 Paradigm wrote:
Of course, the easy way to reconcile the two versions of Balance, the whole 'Dark Side is an aberration in the Force' thing and a more logical position where Balance is Light and Dark in harmony is to just say that the former is simply how the Jedi have come to see it, and doesn't actually reflect any real 'truth' about the Force. The Jedi are known to have been easily led astray and often short-sighted in their beliefs, especially at the end, so you simply state that the reason they believe the Dark Side to be an abnormality that has to be destroyed it because that's more palatable to them than accepting that what they've preached for a few thousand years might in fact be totally wrong.

If, for example, Yoda came to this realisation, would he say 'Ok, we're now doing Dark Side classes with the Younglings every other Friday', or would he do any amount of mental gymnastics to justify teaching that Balance= Overwhelming presence of the Light Side'? The Jedi ideology is known to be flawed on so many levels that this would be an easy thing to explain away.


So what you're talking about are opposing parties who at one time were perhaps less extreme and more willing to accept the other as an important part of the balance in the system, but now have become narrow-minded zealots that spend their time demonizing and denying the other's right to exist?

Could that even happen in real life?

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Bran Dawri wrote:
Mmm, but the Jedi were never about "ultimate overwhelming goodness" or compassion. They're trained almost from birth to completely suppress all emotion and work within the rules/laws of their order. Or else. I mean, they kicked Ahsoka out for not lying down and accepting a false accusation.


I agree which is why I find the forced distinction stupid, and the honest truth is that there doesn't seem to be much of one in the episode(s) that forced it. The Mortis trilogy kept insisting on this stuff in dialog, but the actual plot of the episodes didn't remotely mesh with what was being said.

That's why I keep calling it bonkers.

like Bendu claiming allegiance to neither side


See I didn't like Bendu that much either, because he was almost as dysfunctional as The Father was. He claimed to be in the middle but whenever he had to choose he always chose to help the good guys, and only ever invoked his middleness as an excuse to do nothing. And that last bit was always a contrived convenience for the plot because if Bendu sided with the good guys every time then there wouldn't be much of a plot.

Spoiler:
WI mean he could have just warned Kanan about a few things instead of playing mind games, but that would have ruined the plot so he didn't. he could have helped Ezra and Kanan fight off Maul, but that would have ruined the plot so he didn't. Then comes the Season 3 finally, where Kana said "help up you lazy gakker" and he was like "feth no" and then he did help them because if he didn't it would have ruined the plot. So yeah, the character of Bendu was kind of all over the place for supposedly being in the middle.


Who knows what the original teachings were?


In the Old EU (where this stuff was generally awesome in terms of story telling), the Jed'aii Order began on Tython and actually was all about balance. Anyone who was out of balance earned themselves a lovely field trip to one of the planet's moons (Ashla and Bogan, aka Light and Dark) until they got themselves back into balance. The emergence of modern Jedi and the Sith philosophies owed itself to the Force Wars and the Hundred Year Darkness, where the rising power and aggression of dedicated Dark Side acolytes gradually polarized the order and broke it into the Light dedicated Jedi and the Dark dedicated Sith.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/10/13 14:49:24


   
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The Jedi insistence on destroying the Sith to cause balance, could just be a side effect of their clouding (and perhaps slow corruption) by a Sith shrine their Temple is built over.

The temple being built over a shrine and clouding them is canon, from the novel Tarkin apparently. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Palace#Age_of_the_Jedi
   
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 Frazzled wrote:
This is all cleared up if you remember the prequels don't exist, and were just a collective bad dream....


Yeah. It's amazing how much confusion there is about this.

No prequels exist. And the TFA trilogy takes place in some sort of "legends" timeline that doesn't really count. Simple.

   
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I imagine the movie will be less philosophy and more: if I make more Jedi, they could turn out evil.

Which is true.

If course I would rather the focus back on the simple good vs. evil with normal people and less Jedi focus crap myself.

-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
 
   
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Dallas area, TX

From a few comments from Rian Johnson and Daisy Ridley, it looks like the movie will deal with ruined expectations, which could be quite meta.
Rey is disappointed at Luke, Kylo's light side pull didn't go away after killing Han, etc.
The audience let down because this new trilogy is too similar or too different, take your pick, than what we want from Star Wars

-

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/13 17:13:33


   
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 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
The Jedi insistence on destroying the Sith to cause balance, could just be a side effect of their clouding (and perhaps slow corruption) by a Sith shrine their Temple is built over.

The temple being built over a shrine and clouding them is canon, from the novel Tarkin apparently. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Palace#Age_of_the_Jedi


Honestly I just consider that one of the last things done the flip the bird to the fans in the end. Disney published but Clone Wars was already in the process of setting up that reveal when it got canceled.

My biggest issue with the entire prequel timeline is that it presented the Jedi as too dumb to live.

hey guys lets build our galactic headquarters on top of a shrine seething in evil energy. That will never backfire on us. Oh look some Jedi went rogue and ordered a Clone army with money, even though we're all not supposed to have any money, and it's ready at just the time we need it, and we found it because the Chancellor gave us a mission that put is on a collision course with the guy who is the template for said army, which was made on a planet deleted from our records somehow. I see nothing suspicious here. This isn't screaming "plot to destroy the Jedi" from the get go. Lets just use this army of slaves to fight our war, and continue to ask no question about how insanely convenient all of this is even after we learn the Count Dooku was the one who really set the whole thing up. Come on guys lets go arrest the chancellor a couple years later cause now we're suspicious.

Honestly, the prequel era turned the Jedi into outright idiots, and it didn't help that the films themselves made no attempt to twist the plot or even hide the blatantly obvious outcomes of every event cause that just made the Jedi look even dumber. Everything was so obvious at any given moment, it's no wonder the fanbase embraced a theory that the Jedi were corrupt (cause you're either this damn stupid, or so damn arrogant you might as well be that damn stupid) themselves and the Force planned to wipe them all along. Que George Lucas stepping in to provide an explanation for events that manages to make it all even dumber.

*not bitter*

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/13 19:36:05


 
   
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Ottawa, ON

I get the feeling that the little furry creature is part of a new and growing trope in movies. It's just a 'baby groot' character stuck in their to be cute and sell tickets.

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Dallas area, TX

To be fair, though, the Porgs were an accident. Skelig Micheal Island (spelling) has Puffins on it, so they kept getting into the shots on Ahch-to. So someone had the idea to turn them into creatures that exist on the island.

It's no different than Dagobah being infested with snakes and lizards. Worlds with lots of Force energy tend to have lots of life forms.
It's just a happy coincidence that the creatures are highly marketable.

-

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/13 21:06:08


   
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pontiac, michigan; usa

 LordofHats wrote:
Really hoping Phasma isn't as much of a pushover in this one as she was in the last one. This series ain't going to continue the long tradition of great B villains without some help


Dude she's the boba fett of the new trilogy. Get used to it.

@Manchu (on first page): What?! Wtf was wrong with Rogue One? It was leagues better than TFA. In fact the characters seemed much more enjoyable than TFA and i'd have much preferred them to live over the new trilogy's new characters. TFA has mary-sue (rei), mostly useless love interest (finn), emo disney princess (kylo renn), the new female boba fett (phasma), a mary sue that has actual experience (poe) and basically constant nostalgia moments from the original trilogy. I mean i hate the prequels and all but at least they told us a fairly different story even if it was a dumb story. The comparisons to the original trilogy are just too much. This new series really needs to stand on its own merit rather than star wars and the original trilogy's. Trust me years after all 3 movies come out people will complain just like they did with the prequels. Hardcore fans can never be satisfied though.

 gorgon wrote:
 Paradigm wrote:
Of course, the easy way to reconcile the two versions of Balance, the whole 'Dark Side is an aberration in the Force' thing and a more logical position where Balance is Light and Dark in harmony is to just say that the former is simply how the Jedi have come to see it, and doesn't actually reflect any real 'truth' about the Force. The Jedi are known to have been easily led astray and often short-sighted in their beliefs, especially at the end, so you simply state that the reason they believe the Dark Side to be an abnormality that has to be destroyed it because that's more palatable to them than accepting that what they've preached for a few thousand years might in fact be totally wrong.

If, for example, Yoda came to this realisation, would he say 'Ok, we're now doing Dark Side classes with the Younglings every other Friday', or would he do any amount of mental gymnastics to justify teaching that Balance= Overwhelming presence of the Light Side'? The Jedi ideology is known to be flawed on so many levels that this would be an easy thing to explain away.


So what you're talking about are opposing parties who at one time were perhaps less extreme and more willing to accept the other as an important part of the balance in the system, but now have become narrow-minded zealots that spend their time demonizing and denying the other's right to exist?

Could that even happen in real life?


Have an exalt my dude.

Well paradigm not sure if this is what you mean but there are things that could be wrong that were taught for thousands of years. It's called religion. Course that's what jedi and sith kinda boil down to.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/10/14 07:51:36


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hmmm not sure, the KOTOR 2 vibe I was getting off the prior seems to have been drowned out by whizzbang and a mogwai

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 flamingkillamajig wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
Really hoping Phasma isn't as much of a pushover in this one as she was in the last one. This series ain't going to continue the long tradition of great B villains without some help


Dude she's the boba fett of the new trilogy. Get used to it.

@Manchu (on first page): What?! Wtf was wrong with Rogue One? It was leagues better than TFA. In fact the characters seemed much more enjoyable than TFA and i'd have much preferred them to live over the new trilogy's new characters. TFA has mary-sue (rei), mostly useless love interest (finn), emo disney princess (kylo renn), the new female boba fett (phasma), a mary sue that has actual experience (poe) and basically constant nostalgia moments from the original trilogy. I mean i hate the prequels and all but at least they told us a fairly different story even if it was a dumb story. The comparisons to the original trilogy are just too much. This new series really needs to stand on its own merit rather than star wars and the original trilogy's. Trust me years after all 3 movies come out people will complain just like they did with the prequels. Hardcore fans can never be satisfied though.

 gorgon wrote:
 Paradigm wrote:
Of course, the easy way to reconcile the two versions of Balance, the whole 'Dark Side is an aberration in the Force' thing and a more logical position where Balance is Light and Dark in harmony is to just say that the former is simply how the Jedi have come to see it, and doesn't actually reflect any real 'truth' about the Force. The Jedi are known to have been easily led astray and often short-sighted in their beliefs, especially at the end, so you simply state that the reason they believe the Dark Side to be an abnormality that has to be destroyed it because that's more palatable to them than accepting that what they've preached for a few thousand years might in fact be totally wrong.

If, for example, Yoda came to this realisation, would he say 'Ok, we're now doing Dark Side classes with the Younglings every other Friday', or would he do any amount of mental gymnastics to justify teaching that Balance= Overwhelming presence of the Light Side'? The Jedi ideology is known to be flawed on so many levels that this would be an easy thing to explain away.


So what you're talking about are opposing parties who at one time were perhaps less extreme and more willing to accept the other as an important part of the balance in the system, but now have become narrow-minded zealots that spend their time demonizing and denying the other's right to exist?

Could that even happen in real life?


Have an exalt my dude.

Well paradigm not sure if this is what you mean but there are things that could be wrong that were taught for thousands of years. It's called religion. Course that's what jedi and sith kinda boil down to.


What this guy said.

-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
 
   
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 Mr Nobody wrote:
I get the feeling that the little furry creature is part of a new and growing trope in movies. It's just a 'baby groot' character stuck in their to be cute and sell tickets.


And don't forget the Christmas toy to have. This is my perception as well, but this is Disney so it's not like we should expect much different!

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On the matter of Porgs and Ewoks, allow me to offer an arguably more cynical view than 'they're just there to sell toys'.

See, I feel the inclusion of such species help to make the Star Wars films feel 'real'. They give the impression of a proper Galaxy, replete with more than just humanoid forms.

Going right back to A New Hope, we got slapped in the face with that as soon as we entered Chalmun's Cantina. Think back to how mind blowing that was. Different shapes and sizes, none of whom had anything to do with the plot.

Prior to that, I don't think there was anything like it (I may be wrong, feel free to suitably educate me). Star Trek had aliens, yes. But due to budgetary restraints, they were largely 'bloke with slightly different ridges A, B and C', or shapeless blobs. The only real variety we got on TV or movies was when it was a central beastie. They just didn't have the time or the money to do that with background characters.

And that's something that continued throughout the original trilogy, including silly little cutaways, like that frog thing outside Jabba's Palace. They ultimately serve little plot purpose, if any at all. But they show a Galaxy full of diverse life forms.

Ewoks? There's a definite 'they'll sell toys and spinoffs' from them, but I've never felt they were out of place. Now that may be because of my age. I'm 37, so grew up with Ewoks in my life. By the time I was old enough to actually pay attention, the toy shelves were predominantly RotJ ranges, and so Ewoks have just always been there. I certainly don't really remember Star Wars without the furry little blighters. Those older no doubt have very different recollections, and fair enough.

Porgs? They're cute, they're franky adawbs cute. But they still, at the moment, from what little I've seen, feel out of place. They're just the next Salacious Crumb, a little something added in which in its own way enriches the setting. Of course, they may turn out to be as utterly unsufferable as J** J** B***s, but time will tell.

   
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I'm just sad those things don't have giant mouths because they remind me so Potoo birds.

Spoiler:

 
   
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@Manchu (on first page): What?! Wtf was wrong with Rogue One? It was leagues better than TFA. In fact the characters seemed much more enjoyable than TFA and i'd have much preferred them to live over the new trilogy's new characters. TFA has mary-sue (rei), mostly useless love interest (finn), emo disney princess (kylo renn), the new female boba fett (phasma), a mary sue that has actual experience (poe) and basically constant nostalgia moments from the original trilogy. I mean i hate the prequels and all but at least they told us a fairly different story even if it was a dumb story. The comparisons to the original trilogy are just too much. This new series really needs to stand on its own merit rather than star wars and the original trilogy's. Trust me years after all 3 movies come out people will complain just like they did with the prequels. Hardcore fans can never be satisfied though.


Its all subjective but:

Rogue One had an awful start and only passable first half - the second half was fantastic - can't fault it.

TFA was more consistent but never quite reached the heights that R1 did in the second half. Never thought Bobba Fett was that interesting in the main trilogy - he's hardly in it!

Both are a thousand times better than the Prequel drek.

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I thought R1 was a bit better than TFA, but it dragged on for too long, it had bad pacing, the acting wasn't amazing and they brought in a bunch of characters just to die heroic deaths. The plot also runs on idiocy; a lot of what happens in the movie is only possible because Imperial security sucks. The first 30 minutes or so felt fine but it eventually felt like a slog to watch.
I liked how the rebels weren't the obvious good guys in R1, at least at first; they showed the rebels doing some pretty questionable stuff, which was a departure from the usual Star Wars dualism.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/10/16 15:11:49


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 flamingkillamajig wrote:
@Manchu (on first page): What?! Wtf was wrong with Rogue One? It was leagues better than TFA.
TFA was the better movie for a very simple reason: it has interesting characters and R1 doesn't. And TFA has better acting. And R1's soundtrack is absolute gak. In all other respects, TFA and R1 are pretty much evenly mediocre. Well, I think TFA does have the better action shots. I have nothing against Edwards but there wasn't a shot in R1 that really stood out like the Falcon flip shot in TFA or the X-Wings swooping over the ruins of Maz's cantina. There certainly wasn't anything as emotionally interesting in R1 as Rey facing Kylo in the dark, snowy forest.

Rey is not a Mary Sue. Rey is not even that overpowered, considering this is a SW movie. There is a problem with Rey, however: Kathleen Kennedy refused to allow TFA to tell us anything about her. She seems too powerful because there is no explanation of why she is powerful. Disney did this because they are building a "cinematic universe" and that means creating mysteries to be solved by future films. Rey's power level in TFA will ultimately not seem so strange once subsequent episodes explain it. But yeah it frustrates the crap out of me.
 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I liked how the rebels weren't the obvious good guys in R1, at least at first; they showed the rebels doing some pretty questionable stuff, which was a departure from the usual Star Wars dualism.
Then again, so what? When Cpt Moustache murders the Rebel informant at the beginning, I was like "oh gak this is going to be really interesting." But that was both the beginning and the end of the morally questionable good guys. Later on, Moustache is going to kill Jyn's dad except no, he isn't, because Jyn's dad is clearly not a bad guy and Moustache is a good guy. And that's pretty much it, period, the end, no more shades of gray in R1. Also, at no point was the Empire shown to be anything but evil ... well other than massively incompetent. Like so incompetent that one wonders why there even needs to be a Rebellion. Anyhow, point is, R1 promises to be a lot of things: gritty, morally complicated, comparatively realistic but it all ends up as mere pretension.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/10/16 15:39:26


   
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on the forum. Obviously

Yeah, that's true. They started off with some moral ambiguity, but then they quickly defaulted to the usual formula. I was a bit disappointed in that.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/16 15:41:04


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 Manchu wrote:
 flamingkillamajig wrote:
@Manchu (on first page): What?! Wtf was wrong with Rogue One? It was leagues better than TFA.
TFA was the better movie for a very simple reason: it has interesting characters and R1 doesn't. And TFA has better acting. And R1's soundtrack is absolute gak. In all other respects, TFA and R1 are pretty much evenly mediocre. Well, I think TFA does have the better action shots. I have nothing against Edwards but there wasn't a shot in R1 that really stood out like the Falcon flip shot in TFA or the X-Wings swooping over the ruins of Maz's cantina.

Rey is not a Mary Sue. Rey is not even that overpowered, considering this is a SW movie. There is a problem with Rey, however: Kathleen Kennedy refused to allow TFA to tell us anything about her. She seems too powerful because there is no explanation of why she is powerful. Disney did this because they are building a "cinematic universe" and that means creating mysteries to be solved by future films. Rey's power level in TFA will ultimately not seem so strange once subsequent episodes explain it.


I agree that Rey is not a Mary Sue but she's still the biggest problem in TFA. My issue with TFA is that it took the merry band of characters from ANH and replaced them with a solo act. TFA focuses on Rey to such an extent that it harms the movie. Nothing happens unless Rey is in the scene. There aren't enough new characters, there's Rey, Finn and Kylo Ren and the scenes and Finn and Ren need Rey in the scene to have their most interesting and insightful scenes. The original trilogy was centered on Luke but the movies didn't need to put Luke in every scene in order to showcase the EU or advance the plot. In ANH the audience is introduced to Leia before Luke and the audience is introduced to Han before Luke meets him. In TFA, we see the Millennium Falcon when Rey does, we meet Han and Chewie when Rey does, we see Leia again when Rey does, it feels like the whole movie is waiting on Rey to show up to do the scene. It messes up the pacing of the movie and makes the setting/story feel small.

I think Saw Gerrera is a more interesting character than anyone new we meet in TFA. Saw starts a rebellion against the Empire because he believes the Empire is too big and tyrannical he has no knowledge of the Sith or that Palpatine is a Sith Lord, etc. and he keeps fighting an unwinnable fight against a galaxy spanning superpower even as the fighting literally kills him one piece at a time and frays his sanity. In TFA we get Po who is just Wedge Antilles 2.0 and cameos from old characters. R1 had disposable characters yes, but that was a theme in the movie, that fighting the Galactic Empire was a fight you'd lose, it would grind you down, use you up and kill you. R1 also had a much better villain than TFA and villains do more to determine a good story than protagonists. The Galactic Empire is far more intimidating and powerful in R1 and the original trilogy than the First Order is in TFA. The First Order feels small, it's like ISIS, sure they're bad guys that want to do bad things but ISIS isn't going to take over Earth anymore than the First Order was going to take over the galaxy. Star Killer base was an impressive (if ridiculously implausible) weapon but nothing conveyed to the audience a belief that the First Order would bounce back from its destruction. ANH set up the Galactic Empire as being a galaxy spanning superpower that builds DeathStars, is run by an evil Emperor and his cyborg hatchet man with superpowers, they have fleets and armies and losing the DeathStar wasn't going to defeat them, they were going to strike back and punish the rebellion. What's the First Order? A splinter military faction from the Galactic Empire, it's defining characteristic is being a lesser version of the powerful villain of the original trilogy.




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I think Saw Gerrera is a more interesting character than anyone new we meet in TFA. Saw starts a rebellion against the Empire because he believes the Empire is too big and tyrannical he has no knowledge of the Sith or that Palpatine is a Sith Lord, etc. and he keeps fighting an unwinnable fight against a galaxy spanning superpower even as the fighting literally kills him one piece at a time and frays his sanity


I thought he was one of the poorer parts of the film that could have been easily cut to reduce run time.

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Prestor Jon wrote:
In ANH the audience is introduced to Leia before Luke and the audience is introduced to Han before Luke meets him. In TFA, we see the Millennium Falcon when Rey does, we meet Han and Chewie when Rey does, we see Leia again when Rey does, it feels like the whole movie is waiting on Rey to show up to do the scene. It messes up the pacing of the movie and makes the setting/story feel small.


I feel like that's kind of a trivial line to draw, and fallacious. Rey is the last of the main four new characters we meet. Poe is the first, then Kylo, and Finn pulls off his helmet not much later. Sure Rey commands most of the attention once she shows up, but so did Luke. Outside of Obi-Wan, no one in ANH does much of anything of consequence without Luke on, or just off camera. Kylo got about the same screen time as Vader (though Vader was terrifying, and Kylo was just... angsty).

I think Saw Gerrera is a more interesting character than anyone new we meet in TFA.


They wasted a perfectly good character imo. Really kind of Episode 1 onwards issues. Maul. Dooku. Greivous. Gerrera. There's probably more, but those four stand out to me as characters who show up, make an cool or exciting first impression, and then just die or otherwise get taken out before getting to really entertain. Krenick for a one off villain indeed was much more interesting and engaging as an antagonist, and he was easily the most mundane of the lot which really highlights how rapidly these films waste their villains in my book. Greivous though I have a particular anger for cause he made huge and kick ass splash when he first appeared in the 2003 Clone Wars series. He was scary, competent, and basically the complete and utter opposite of the mustache twirling card board cut out he ended up as after Episode III. Maul, Dooku, and Gerrera were merely wasted as characters. Greivous was actively ruined.

What's the First Order? A splinter military faction from the Galactic Empire, it's defining characteristic is being a lesser version of the powerful villain of the original trilogy.


This I agree with though. I generally see most criticism of TFA as sour grapes, but the one thing I think the film really needed to do and didn't do well is explain the state of the galaxy 20 years after RotJ. I mean sure. There's a new Republic, and there's the First Order, and there's a Resistance but the situation these powers are in and what they're up to and why we should give a damn about any of it was never clear and left as kind of a jumbled mess. The New Republic basically makes a cameo appearance to die, the Resistance is just the Rebel Alliance under a new name, and the First Order is so ill defined as an organization. We don't know their scope, greater goals, or how significant a power they are in the grand scheme of things. Come on this is Star Wars. Everyone builds super weapons in this universe. It's the bread and butter. Being able to throw one together is a cheap way at this point of telling me someone is important.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/16 17:09:55


   
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Saw Guerrera is the morally ambiguous aspect of rebellion that Mon Mothma and her crew can no longer be part of, but are constantly toying with. On again, off again relationship to casual violence.

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 Easy E wrote:
On again, off again relationship to casual violence.


Honestly I feel like this could be a tag line for the entire series.

Remember kids. War, violence, and oppression are bad! Except when the war is against tyrannical governments, the violence is inflicted on faceless enemies you can dehumanize (unless they're Sand People, in which case YOU MUST CARE), and when you have to force some planets back into line because self-determination isn't recognized in this corrupt political system and anyone who wants to separate from something called "the Republic" must be a faceless off screen villain worth none of your time or effort

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/16 17:20:45


   
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All the stuff Pretsor Jon explained about Saw Gerrara may be true (I honestly don't know) but that stuff certainly isn't in R1. In R1, he is an incoherent tertiary element; maybe the remains of an earlier, better script. The most interesting character in R1 is either Jyn's dad or Krennic. Neither are as interesting as Kylo Ren.

Yes, another problem with TFA is WTF is going on in this setting? No one bothers to explain it in the film because I am expected to read a coffee table book or a graphic novel. My impression was, we just needed our good guys to fight storm troopers and TIE fighters. Laaaaame.

   
 
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