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 Manchu wrote:
Just to remind you, the ISDs defending Scarif also had a hard time opening fire on the Rebel fleet. And the Rebels just rammed ships into them.

Not defending TLJ, just pointing out that this is a Disney issue not necessarily a Rian Johnson issue.

That's different - you disable a ship with ion torpedos and you take advantage of it by pushing it into the sheild gate (and the other ISD that wasn't smart enough to realize what was happening in time) Also - it seems like this ship (hammerhead corvette) is actually designed to push things in space. Something like a battle tugboat.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Evil characters in fantasy often are mysterious. It adds to their fear factor.

There's "mysterious" as in "fearfully mysterious" like Sauron in Lord of the Rings, whom we know very little about (at least in the OT, lol. The Silmarillion actually makes him out to be quite awesome). We know he's in charge, and in possession of some very dark magic, with the will to dominate all life. But we don't know how he is doing these things, why now, or how deep the corruption truely goes in the heart of the world. That's terrifying.

For Snoke... I don't even know if he's really a force user. I mean, he says he is, and I think he grabs a lightsabre at one point. The other characters seem to agree with him, I guess, so it'd follow. I have no idea what his motivations are: power? Like Sauron, is he trying to dominate all life in the galaxy? Or money? Or is he just a spiteful jerk that wants to KILL ALL JEDI and decided that a galactic takeover might bring Luke out from hiding and make him easier to find? Or is he trying to do a Palpatine impersonation like Kylo Ren is with Vader? I also have no idea if he's even In Charge: he only talks to Hux and Ren (I think?) and the rest of the First Order either doesn't know he existed or doesn't seem bothered by his death, which tells me he's not really that important because no one gives a gak, and as soon as he dies, Ren and Hux have a momentary power struggle, then Ren wins, and then it's Business As Usual for the rest of the FO.

When Sauron died, his mysterious will to dominate Middle Earth shattered, and everything he had wrought crumbled. When Palpatine died, the Empire shattered and the Sith were finally wiped out (except not apparently). When Snoke died... well, stuff just sorta ticked on without him. That's not a scary villain, that's like, a mook that everyone talks about is scary.

Backfire wrote:

He's leader of the First Order, the bad guys looking to take over the Galaxy. Basically, he has the some role as the Emperor in the first trilogy and we never learned more about him either, in the original trilogy.

I keep reading this analogy with the emperor and I find it baffling, every single time.

The Emperor is slowly but logically build in the OT.
In ANH, he is a shadow presence, we see his will through Vader and Tarkin. A single sentence in the officer board room described us that there is some sort of new order: someone dissolved the senate. They call this guy the Emperor and the overall authoritarian motif (and Vader and Tarkin statements along with the introduction) tells us that this is a situation in which the bad guy is some fascist organisation. It is enough to look at history (and even to the uniforms of the officers) to have this impression reinforced. We know that in history dictators of many sorts deprived people of freedom removing authority from the parliament. We don't need exposition because is something we know in real life. We don't need exposition in SW movies to know or infer that characters drink, eat or go the the bathroom.
In ESB, the force angle is emphasized and Vader is shown interacting more directly with the Emp. We know now he is not only the big boss but he is a space wizard as well.
In RotJ, the Emperor is shown in person, is implied being more evil than Vader ("I hope so, Commander, for your sake. The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am"). And then is shown being a masterful manipulator, on small and big scale. This, by the way, solidifies what implied in ANH - the guy is obviously evil but a skilled politician. He probably not only used brute force to get into the position.

There is enough for the story. Fascist government, planet destroyers, rebels against that. Evil space wizard, temptation.
The prequels explained more, some of that makes no sense on the detailed scale, but at least we have Ian McDiarmid. Even prequel haters (I am not a big fan) love him. By the way, the prequels introduce the rule of Two, the fact that Palpatine was looking for revenge among other things (from Ep I, remember what Maul says).

Flash forward to TFA. In RotJ, the whole galaxy is shown happily celebrate the death of Emp. The republic is implied as re-established. This makes people assume that the majority of people are under the democracy.
Yet, for nostalgia's sake, the resistance are the underdogs. Because how can play people into thinking that TFA is a good movie, otherwise?
Is because part of the empire remained authoritarian and refused to join? Is unclear. We really have no idea about the scope of the first order. If they are still in charge of a good part of the galaxy, why they look more like school shooters and nazi cosplayers? There is a huge dissonance.
The bosses are a caricature (Hux) a deconstruction (Kylo) and another guy that is not an actual character, too: Snoke. Snoke is put there only for nostalgia (HEY GUYZ 'MEMBER THE EMPEROR?).
Snoke makes no sense for the rule of two. Was he a rejected student form the emperor? Would be cool. Just a sentence ("I will show he rejected me for the wrong student" or something) could have given him a sort of motivation. Even in the OT, so black and white, the emperor is shown as having at least more than one motivation driving him. Order, absolute power, legacy.
Snoke is "LMAO EVIL". How he knows the Force? how can be so powerful? How the other characters know him, but there was no trace in the OT? He appears in an established universe but since he was only a placeholder for nostalgia, he is just an underdeveloped magic box of that hack of JJ.
What are the resources of these people? He is a space noble from a family of force sensistives, full of resources? This could have been a throwaway line too. SOMETHING.

This is like the Starkiller. People want me to believe that a faction that is a splinter of the imperials (because if is not a splinter, the Republic needs WAY MORE than the ragtag of Leia to fight them) can build the Death Star x1000. Is just an assault to logic and I have to believe it because "dude these movies are for children". No they are not at the moment, actually. Too cynical.

Snoke needs something more than just "he is Snoke" because he is late to the party. He cannot sit anywhere like the Emp did. He needs to adjust to where the other characters are, and to the rules already written. This is basic narrative and how you cannot grasp it is beyond me.

These people are taking you all for the nose, show an utter contempt for the audience and you are here defending them.
Is hilarious.

All these points matter to an aficionado of the fictional history of Star Wars, however to put them into the film by expositional scenes would slow down the pace while adding nothing to the enjoyment for people who aren't interested in such detail.

Starkiller is also very stupid...maybe the most stupid thing ever.

It fires cross galaxy with hyperspace deathstar lasers that can change direction.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
All these points matter to an aficionado of the fictional history of Star Wars, however to put them into the film by expositional scenes would slow down the pace while adding nothing to the enjoyment for people who aren't interested in such detail.

Any of the examples above need a sentence no longer of 1 minute. In a movie with the casino sub-plot, I wish to remember.
And this just giving up to any subtlety or skill from the creator's part into showing and not telling what happened.
Which is the crucial issue. A lack of a simple worldbuilding without dumb exposition. Something very common in modern "popcorn" cinema.

Also, the basic inconsistency of the Resistance being the underdogs even if the FO is the remnants can be picked up watching TFA for the first time as the first SW movie by anyone with half a brain.

Furthermore, I seriously doubt people did not watch at least once the originals before watching TFA. Since it was BUILD on nostalgia, I can bet the movie was really betting on the older fanbase to bring the new people.
BTW, with Last Jedi they are now 600 millions under in the very least. Possibly 700-800.

Finally, the lack of a proper building does indeed ruin the immersion and enjoyment to people. Or in the very least, make an emotional attachment to that world less strong and ultimately fails to build up a movie that becomes a classic. Is just another marvel movie in the meatgrinder.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
All these points matter to an aficionado of the fictional history of Star Wars, however to put them into the film by expositional scenes would slow down the pace while adding nothing to the enjoyment for people who aren't interested in such detail.

I think it's also important to make the villain credible, whether you give a gak about the original movies or not.

I think the major word that I can use to sum up my problem with the movie is believability. A villain has to be believable to be a credible threat that the audience wants to see the heroes beat. Snoke didn't strike me as that believable. He has no apparent motivations (though we can speculate on whether it is money, power, revenge, or fanboyism for Palpatine), no apparent importance to the First Order (utterly no one seems shaken or alarmed by his death. Even Hux and Ren go immediately to their ambitions rather than their shock/horror/sense of liberation), and no real threat (he taunts people a lot, but the real threat in the film seems to be incompetence itself. If fear is the mind killer, then stupidity is the everything-killer).

Seriously. Most of the dangers encountered by any given character (good or bad!) in TLJ are products of either their own or someone else's incompetence.

I can only reiterate that although these points are important to you, my wife, my daughter and I didn't mind about them.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I can only reiterate that although these points are important to you, my wife, my daughter and I didn't mind about them.

If you don't think that the believability of the film is important, then I don't know what to tell you. I can't enjoy something I'm not invested in, and I can't invest in something if it doesn't invest in making me care. Having an unbelievable scenario with an unbelievable villain with no real sense that any of it is important means the tension is gone. With no credible threat, the heroes are sure to win, and with no credible heroes, I don't really care even if they do.

Credibility/believability of the characters is what gets my emotional and mental investment, not just pretty graphics and pew pew noises and bright neon signs saying [HEROIC CHARACTER SELF-SACRIFICE DETECTED: EXECUTE SADNESS.EXE].

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I can only reiterate that although these points are important to you, my wife, my daughter and I didn't mind about them.

I enjoyed part of the movie too, you know.
Some costume design, the use of red. The "red scenes" in the movie are absolutely gorgeous. Other shots were fantastic, I find incredible are from the same guy of the matrix dodge of the lightsaber. For one, I have no problems with space bombers because SW has a dogfight vibe that is not supposed to be what a space fight should be - and that's great is consistent in the universe (this is the basic problem of the hyperspace ram - is actually too smart for the universe, at the point of being stupid because it ruins it).

Also, I have a guilty pleasure of watching ironically post apocalyptic shlock with bad effects and acting. Truly enjoy. But these are not movies that will remain with me.

How much of this new trilogy emotionally resonates compared to the old one? This is what I ask. It's cynical and poorly build. It has none of the language of the myth of the originals. Those appealed to something archetypal in humans.
How much will it stay with us compared to the OT?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I can only reiterate that although these points are important to you, my wife, my daughter and I didn't mind about them.

If you don't think that the believability of the film is important, then I don't know what to tell you. I can't enjoy something I'm not invested in, and I can't invest in something if it doesn't invest in making me care. Having an unbelievable scenario with an unbelievable villain with no real sense that any of it is important means the tension is gone. With no credible threat, the heroes are sure to win, and with no credible heroes, I don't really care even if they do.

Credibility/believability of the characters is what gets my emotional and mental investment, not just pretty graphics and pew pew noises and bright neon signs saying [HEROIC CHARACTER SELF-SACRIFICE DETECTED: EXECUTE SADNESS.EXE].

I can only reiterate that my wife, my daughter and I didn't find the believability of the film to be lacking.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I can only reiterate that although these points are important to you, my wife, my daughter and I didn't mind about them.

I enjoyed part of the movie too, you know.
Some costume design, the use of red. The "red scenes" in the movie are absolutely gorgeous. Other shots were fantastic, I find incredible are from the same guy of the matrix dodge of the lightsaber. For one, I have no problems with space bombers because SW has a dogfight vibe that is not supposed to be what a space fight should be - and that's great because is ok since is consistent in the universe (this is the basic problem of the hyperspace ram - is actually too smart for the universe, at the point of being stupid because it ruins it).

Also, I have a guilty pleasure of watching ironically post apocalyptic shlock with bad effects and acting. Truly enjoy. But these are not movies that will remain with me.

How much of this new trilogy emotionally resonates compared to the old one? This is what I ask. It's cynical and poorly build. It has none of the language of the myth of the originals. Those appealed to something archetypal in humans.
How much will it stay with us compared to the OT?

Only time will tell.

Perhaps a new generation of girl fans will emerge, hooked on the combination of strong female leads and Kyle Renlo's sweaty torso and emo posturings.

Voss wrote:

sebster wrote:I
The Republic's fall was as much explained in this series as it was in the original trilogy, that it was never a complaint then is a clear sign it isn't a genuine complaint now.

This is entirely weird. The Republic's fall didn't need to be explained in the original- the setting was the Empire. The Empire was in place and functioning, and 'sweeping away the last remnants of the old republic,' the people who remembered it were old men- Kenobi, basically. While it wasn't explained in detail, there was plenty of time for it to have happened, and it's fall doesn't directly affect any of the main cast- it happened before they were born/when they were little kids. So you have an established empire consolidating the last of its power after winning decades ago with a choke hold on the galaxy. This is perfectly reasonable as presented.

In TFA you have a functioning republic. In TLJ, it is gone, and the first order had won everywhere in the galaxy and taken over. Now go back to the end of TFA: it ends on Rey handing Luke the lightsaber. Skip the intro space battle- the beginning of the movie for Rey, it picks up the Exact Same Moment- Rey handing the lightsaber to Luke. So in the course of essentially no time at all , the First Order conquered the entire galaxy*. Instantaneous Galactic Conquest bloody well requires some explanation. Not just telling the audience It Is So (don't question it) in the opening text crawl, with a couple snippets of dialogue wrapped around an anachronistic Verizon joke.

Actually, no, they say it in the opening crawl that First Order is "deploying his legions to take over the Galaxy", indicating that the process is only beginning, and in fact they even say it again in the movie: when Resistance flees to the Salt Flats planet (forgot the name), they send out distress calls for potential allies which they hope will ride in and defeat First Order. Now, maybe they have some wishful thinking there but that they even attempt such a move tells us there are plenty of other factions left in the Galaxy with military stregth. They don't come: maybe they feel they are too weak to fight First Order, maybe they are too disorganized, maybe they actually agree with the First Order, whatever they reason, they don't come to help, but they are there.

Another thing which tells us that First Order doesn't have iron grip over the Galaxy is the presence of independent arms dealers in the Casino world who sold weapons for both Resistance and First Order. If FO controlled everything, they would have no need for such dealers. FO could just order built whatever they want, and stop Resistance or anyone else buying weapons.

I repeat that the problem is that they explained the whole thing so poorly in TFA. Instant assumption of the viewer was that First Order = Imperium and Resistance = Rebel Alliance and I have read lots of people wondering exact same as above: "How did First Order conquer the Galaxy so quickly?" Well, they did not. TFA just set up the scene so badly that viewers went to natural, but wrong conclusions about this being the exact same story.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
All these points matter to an aficionado of the fictional history of Star Wars, however to put them into the film by expositional scenes would slow down the pace while adding nothing to the enjoyment for people who aren't interested in such detail.

More to the point, Snoke doesn't matter. TLJ reveals Kylo Ren to be the true villain in this trilogy. Yes, Snoke was the one who turned him. But the OT still worked even though we knew nothing about how Palpatine turned Vader, and that whole trilogy is ultimately about Vader's turn away from Palpatine through his son's faith in him.

Palpatine was a cackling evil wizard leader. Snoke is the same. We're even given visual and audio shorthand for this through the imagery and soundtrack in the throne room scene. That's more than enough for most people to understand what they need to understand about Snoke. And more isn't needed anyway for a *secondary* villain that's meant to expire in an ignominious moment that elevates another character.

And I think you put your finger on something important here. Yes, I think there are at least some people so steeped in all the ancillary material around the OT and prequels that they're uncomfortable 'knowing' so little about the events and characters in these movies. Hell, because of their age, some of them will have never known a SW saga without all the extra novels and sourcebooks and RPGs and cartoons. I'm sure Disney will be pumping out material to fill the yearning from that group, but as of right now this is kinda how it felt being a SW fan back during the OT.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
All these points matter to an aficionado of the fictional history of Star Wars, however to put them into the film by expositional scenes would slow down the pace while adding nothing to the enjoyment for people who aren't interested in such detail.

Disagree somewhat - watching a sequel to a film tends to have at least some continuity so the audience are comfortable. A short sequence of the FO crushing the Republic (or whatever they called it) would have been handy, evocative and scene setting. Same as a better script which gave more flavour to the characters

Many times in this film IMO you don't need more time you just need to spend it better, the old sentence here of there can be brilliant for backstory - eg less Casino world nonsense more on the people.

Fair enough that your wife and child enjoyed it - several teenage children of those I spoke to did feel as we "adults" did - increasingly bored and disinterested as the film progressed. We all felt that the final action sequence being too much after too little and really most of us thought the film was ending when the rebels went down to the base.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
All these points matter to an aficionado of the fictional history of Star Wars, however to put them into the film by expositional scenes would slow down the pace while adding nothing to the enjoyment for people who aren't interested in such detail.

Disagree somewhat - watching a sequel to a film tends to have at least some continuity so the audience are comfortable. A short sequence of the FO crushing the Republic (or whatever they called it) would have been handy, evocative and scene setting. Same as a better script which gave more flavour to the characters

Many times in this film IMO you don't need more time you just need to spend it better, the old sentence here of there can be brilliant for backstory - eg less Casino world nonsense more on the people.

Fair enough that your wife and child enjoyed it - several teenage children of those I spoke to did feel as we "adults" did - increasingly bored and disinterested as the film progressed. We all felt that the final action sequence being too much after too little and really most of us thought the film was ending when the rebels went down to the base.

You know what would have been a cool sequence you could put in the background of the Casino World that would really flesh things out?

A shot of uniformed First Order stormtroopers marching a column of uniformed New Republic soldiers as prisoners. Right there you learn 3 things, and it's 'shown not told':

1) The First Order is indeed overthrowing the Republic even as we speak, dismantling its existing structure.
2) The New Republic did indeed keep garrison forces on worlds, even Casino World, and these had to be overcome - though after the fall of the capitol, some gave up without a fight. (how blasted the Republic troopers look could tell whether there was a fight or not)
3) The First Order is everywhere, and there is real danger for the Resistance.

It also would've also given Rose and Finn something important to do with their plotline: instead of releasing space-horseys, they could've released angry Republic troopers, and the FO kept their weapons nearby of course because of sheer villainous incompetence. Then you could have an outright battle in the streets between the now reinvigorated garrison and the First Order, destroying the Casino World with the very weapons that its patrons sold to the warriors. If you wanted to keep the bad humor, you could have a surrendering civilian with his hands up getting prodded by the barrel of a gun and saying "stop it! I sold you that!" or something in an alien language.

That way, even though Finn and Rose's plot "failed", something that affected the wider universe would have been accomplished, and you would have seen evidence that the First Order are taking over the galaxy, and you could have hamfisted your "capitalism is bad" motif in as well.

I felt the scenes in the last film of the Star Killer blowing up all the Republic planets was a good indication of how the Resistance came to be running away at the start of the next film.

This is the same point that comes up again and again. Lots of you guys seem to have wanted much more detail in the exposition and background than the film delivered.

It wasn't necessary for the film to "work", but it has left you unsatisfied.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I felt the scenes in the last film of the Star Killer blowing up all the Republic planets was a good indication of how the Resistance came to be running away at the start of the next film.

This is the same point that comes up again and again. Lots of you guys seem to have wanted much more detail in the exposition and background than the film delivered.

It wasn't necessary for the film to "work", but it has left you unsatisfied.

I know you 'trust' the film a lot more than I do, but this just jumps right back to believabiliy. There are hundreds of examples of governments that stay intact when the capitol has been destroyed, evacuated, or occupied. In fact, Republics seem to be more resilient in this way than Empires because of the distributed nature of their governance (i.e. it's not the charisma of one man that holds everything together).

The premise of the new trilogy seems to be that the Republic just up and folded when the capitol and their main fleet was wiped out. Is there no resistance at all? Is there some? Were there secondary or garrison fleets? Were there naval shipyards that had their own defense forces? Is the First Order at all hampered by these efforts of the Republic, or are they just focused exclusively on the three Resistance vessels?

Backfire wrote:

Voss wrote:

sebster wrote:I
The Republic's fall was as much explained in this series as it was in the original trilogy, that it was never a complaint then is a clear sign it isn't a genuine complaint now.

This is entirely weird. The Republic's fall didn't need to be explained in the original- the setting was the Empire. The Empire was in place and functioning, and 'sweeping away the last remnants of the old republic,' the people who remembered it were old men- Kenobi, basically. While it wasn't explained in detail, there was plenty of time for it to have happened, and it's fall doesn't directly affect any of the main cast- it happened before they were born/when they were little kids. So you have an established empire consolidating the last of its power after winning decades ago with a choke hold on the galaxy. This is perfectly reasonable as presented.

In TFA you have a functioning republic. In TLJ, it is gone, and the first order had won everywhere in the galaxy and taken over. Now go back to the end of TFA: it ends on Rey handing Luke the lightsaber. Skip the intro space battle- the beginning of the movie for Rey, it picks up the Exact Same Moment- Rey handing the lightsaber to Luke. So in the course of essentially no time at all , the First Order conquered the entire galaxy*. Instantaneous Galactic Conquest bloody well requires some explanation. Not just telling the audience It Is So (don't question it) in the opening text crawl, with a couple snippets of dialogue wrapped around an anachronistic Verizon joke.

Actually, no, they say it in the opening crawl that First Order is "deploying his legions to take over the Galaxy", indicating that the process is only beginning, and in fact they even say it again in the movie: when Resistance flees to the Salt Flats planet (forgot the name), they send out distress calls for potential allies which they hope will ride in and defeat First Order. Now, maybe they have some wishful thinking there but that they even attempt such a move tells us there are plenty of other factions left in the Galaxy with military stregth. They don't come: maybe they feel they are too weak to fight First Order, maybe they are too disorganized, maybe they actually agree with the First Order, whatever they reason, they don't come to help, but they are there.

Another thing which tells us that First Order doesn't have iron grip over the Galaxy is the presence of independent arms dealers in the Casino world who sold weapons for both Resistance and First Order. If FO controlled everything, they would have no need for such dealers. FO could just order built whatever they want, and stop Resistance or anyone else buying weapons.

I repeat that the problem is that they explained the whole thing so poorly in TFA. Instant assumption of the viewer was that First Order = Imperium and Resistance = Rebel Alliance and I have read lots of people wondering exact same as above: "How did First Order conquer the Galaxy so quickly?" Well, they did not. TFA just set up the scene so badly that viewers went to natural, but wrong conclusions about this being the exact same story.

I don't think anyone really understood the whole resistance thing - it was poor.

I would agree its another narrative cockup but the weird thing about that is that the Republic fleet by this point - at most a day or two after the end of TFA is one cruiser, some escorts and some unarmed transports without hyperspace. If the FO is still moving to take control what the hell happened to the republic military?? why can't anyone name the potential allies and say - well at least the Republic of X still holds out or something. Again its just lazy writing.

Its it supposed to be that they disarmed themselves after the Empire was defeated? Casino World nonsense suggests that nope - arms sales to both sides is going well (It is amusing that they won't buy each others stuff though).

Both the TFA and TLJ seemed desperate to reset the clock on Star Wars despite all the talk by critics of subverting - the makers just seemed to have been told or wanted to go back to the glory days when the Good Rebellion was fighting the Evil Empire and that's fair enough - Star Wars is Space Opera after all.

An angle that could have been taken (though it was not and probably will never be) is the First Order as a terrorist organization dedicated to the Empire, like an "alt-right" organized terrorist cell.

Then Star Wars would become a drama about how authoritarian the new Republic became in cracking down: would history repeat itself? Would Leia and Han and Rey and Finn (or the other hypothetical characters of the new trilogy) be able to prevent another Supreme Chancellor from gaining emergency powers? etc. etc.

It probably wouldn't have been a good direction to take it, but I think it'd have been a neat look at current political trends from a fiction perspective.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I felt the scenes in the last film of the Star Killer blowing up all the Republic planets was a good indication of how the Resistance came to be running away at the start of the next film.

This is the same point that comes up again and again. Lots of you guys seem to have wanted much more detail in the exposition and background than the film delivered.

It wasn't necessary for the film to "work", but it has left you unsatisfied.

Didn't it blow up two?

For very many us it was necessary for it to "work" -

if you need less meat in a film fair enough - but if the film pace is going to be so slow that you get time to actually think about the film and what's happening and it makes no sense - that's a problem for those who are thinking as they watch and going - hey what? I am not talking here about the "superfan Conspiracy" I am talking about some kids who have seen one other SW film or some of my friends who might have seen more once but can't recall them that well or really care.

They went to be entertained, nothing more and were not.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

Backfire wrote:

He's leader of the First Order, the bad guys looking to take over the Galaxy. Basically, he has the some role as the Emperor in the first trilogy and we never learned more about him either, in the original trilogy.

I keep reading this analogy with the emperor and I find it baffling, every single time.

The Emperor is slowly but logically build in the OT.
In ANH, he is a shadow presence, we see his will through Vader and Tarkin. A single sentence in the officer board room described us that there is some sort of new order: someone dissolved the senate. They call this guy the Emperor and the overall authoritarian motif (and Vader and Tarkin statements along with the introduction) tells us that this is a situation in which the bad guy is some fascist organisation. It is enough to look at history (and even to the uniforms of the officers) to have this impression reinforced. We know that in history dictators of many sorts deprived people of freedom removing authority from the parliament. We don't need exposition because is something we know in real life. We don't need exposition in SW movies to know or infer that characters drink, eat or go the the bathroom.
In ESB, the force angle is emphasized and Vader is shown interacting more directly with the Emp. We know now he is not only the big boss but he is a space wizard as well.
In RotJ, the Emperor is shown in person, is implied being more evil than Vader ("I hope so, Commander, for your sake. The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am"). And then is shown being a masterful manipulator, on small and big scale. This, by the way, solidifies what implied in ANH - the guy is obviously evil but a skilled politician. He probably not only used brute force to get into the position.

There is enough for the story. Fascist government, planet destroyers, rebels against that. Evil space wizard, temptation.

Yes, I agree with all of the above, but you are missing the whole picture. You are explaining ENTIRE Empire, which Emperor is only a part of. By contrast, those complaining about Snoke's lack of "background" or "mystery" are complaining about the character itself. This is the crucial difference which I have been trying to get across.

Original trilogy Emperor had no more told about his background that Snoke. There was nothing about how he came to power or what he wanted. He wasn't even mentioned as Sith (because the concept didn't exist back then). But the EMPIRE was much better fleshed out, indeed as you say, the whole term is fairly self-explanatory.

By contrast, First Order is not. Starting right from the name, what the heck does that mean? Is it an order, like a spoken command, or like brethren of Knights, or like a political party? And so on, and so on. Since First Order was not explained in the TFA, its leader also felt poorly explained. Now, they could have done it so that Snoke was the main villain to whom FO was only a tool for some nefarious plan. Maybe he wanted to use Galaxy's riches to build himself planet out of gold. Maybe he wanted to suck all the Midichlorians to himself and become god. Or something. However, the writers chose (imo correctly) to make the story about the First Order itself, to which Snoke was only one of the people working for - like a Chairman in a company. In this viewpoint, there is no need to tell us about Snoke's background anymore than of Hux or Phasma. In fact, just as Rian Johnson correctly said, "shocking revelation" that Snoke was actually Palpatine's long lost brother or Grand Moff Tarkin who somehow survived the Death Star's destruction would have only distracted from the story and made the whole Star Wars saga again feel like some inbred cast of a soap opera.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

The bosses are a caricature (Hux) a deconstruction (Kylo) and another guy that is not an actual character, too: Snoke. Snoke is put there only for nostalgia (HEY GUYZ 'MEMBER THE EMPEROR?).
Snoke makes no sense for the rule of two. Was he a rejected student form the emperor? Would be cool. Just a sentence ("I will show he rejected me for the wrong student" or something) could have given him a sort of motivation.

No. This kind of inbred crap is exactly what the Star Wars universe doesn't need any more. In with the new, out with the old.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

Snoke is "LMAO EVIL". How he knows the Force? how can be so powerful?

None of that was told about the Emperor either. He was just a generic Dark Side master. It was kinda implied that his knowledge of Force made him the Emperor but that's it. Concept of Sith did not exist yet, and it was made clear Emperor was not a Jedi. Force is not a monopoly of Jedi, or a duopoly of Sith & Jedi.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

How the other characters know him, but there was no trace in the OT?

30 years passed in an enormous Galactic civilization. It would have been a huge coincidence if somebody HAD known him in the OT.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

This is like the Starkiller. People want me to believe that a faction that is a splinter of the imperials (because if is not a splinter, the Republic needs WAY MORE than the ragtag of Leia to fight them) can build the Death Star x1000. Is just an assault to logic and I have to believe it because "dude these movies are for children". No they are not at the moment, actually. Too cynical.

I agree, but this is not a fault of characterization of Snoke. Nor it is fault of Rian Johnson.
Maybe Starkiller base was a new secret weapon devised by old Empire, which was left unfinished when the Empire collapsed. Or an old alien artifact which they found and refurbished. Anyway, it's another example of how poorly things were explained in TFA.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

Snoke needs something more than just "he is Snoke" because he is late to the party. He cannot sit anywhere like the Emp did. He needs to adjust to where the other characters are, and to the rules already written. This is basic narrative and how you cannot grasp it is beyond me.

Again, the ideas how "Snoke should have been fixed" are invariably ideas of how to backtrack Snoke to OT/PT. None of those are examples of 'good narrative', much less universe building. Chief problem of nearly all Star Wars fiction written, programmed or directed after Return of the Jedi is the inability to come up with anything new which stands on its own without having to retort to "wink wink, nudge nugde" fan service throwback to inviolable canon of the Original Trilogy. Making Snoke a comeback of some old character would have only furtherly emphasized the need to rely on increasingly aged crutches of the old canon.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
All these points matter to an aficionado of the fictional history of Star Wars, however to put them into the film by expositional scenes would slow down the pace while adding nothing to the enjoyment for people who aren't interested in such detail.

Disagree somewhat - watching a sequel to a film tends to have at least some continuity so the audience are comfortable. A short sequence of the FO crushing the Republic (or whatever they called it) would have been handy, evocative and scene setting. Same as a better script which gave more flavour to the characters

Many times in this film IMO you don't need more time you just need to spend it better, the old sentence here of there can be brilliant for backstory - eg less Casino world nonsense more on the people.

Fair enough that your wife and child enjoyed it - several teenage children of those I spoke to did feel as we "adults" did - increasingly bored and disinterested as the film progressed. We all felt that the final action sequence being too much after too little and really most of us thought the film was ending when the rebels went down to the base.

You know what would have been a cool sequence you could put in the background of the Casino World that would really flesh things out?

A shot of uniformed First Order stormtroopers marching a column of uniformed New Republic soldiers as prisoners. Right there you learn 3 things, and it's 'shown not told':

1) The First Order is indeed overthrowing the Republic even as we speak, dismantling its existing structure.
2) The New Republic did indeed keep garrison forces on worlds, even Casino World, and these had to be overcome - though after the fall of the capitol, some gave up without a fight. (how blasted the Republic troopers look could tell whether there was a fight or not)
3) The First Order is everywhere, and there is real danger for the Resistance.

It also would've also given Rose and Finn something important to do with their plotline: instead of releasing space-horseys, they could've released angry Republic troopers, and the FO kept their weapons nearby of course because of sheer villainous incompetence. Then you could have an outright battle in the streets between the now reinvigorated garrison and the First Order, destroying the Casino World with the very weapons that its patrons sold to the warriors. If you wanted to keep the bad humor, you could have a surrendering civilian with his hands up getting prodded by the barrel of a gun and saying "stop it! I sold you that!" or something in an alien language.

That way, even though Finn and Rose's plot "failed", something that affected the wider universe would have been accomplished, and you would have seen evidence that the First Order are taking over the galaxy, and you could have hamfisted your "capitalism is bad" motif in as well.

That's great

If only the highly paid director and his team had had this level of insight into actual filmmaking - ah well.

 gorgon wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
All these points matter to an aficionado of the fictional history of Star Wars, however to put them into the film by expositional scenes would slow down the pace while adding nothing to the enjoyment for people who aren't interested in such detail.

More to the point, Snoke doesn't matter. TLJ reveals Kylo Ren to be the true villain in this trilogy. Yes, Snoke was the one who turned him. But the OT still worked even though we knew nothing about how Palpatine turned Vader, and that whole trilogy is ultimately about Vader's turn away from Palpatine through his son's faith in him.

Palpatine was a cackling evil wizard leader. Snoke is the same. We're even given visual and audio shorthand for this through the imagery and soundtrack in the throne room scene. That's more than enough for most people to understand what they need to understand about Snoke. And more isn't needed anyway for a *secondary* villain that's meant to expire in an ignominious moment that elevates another character.

And I think you put your finger on something important here. Yes, I think there are at least some people so steeped in all the ancillary material around the OT and prequels that they're uncomfortable 'knowing' so little about the events and characters in these movies. Hell, because of their age, some of them will have never known a SW saga without all the extra novels and sourcebooks and RPGs and cartoons. I'm sure Disney will be pumping out material to fill the yearning from that group, but as of right now this is kinda how it felt being a SW fan back during the OT.

There is a big difference with the OT. In the OT, we just knew Vader fell. Then discovered he was Luke's Father. That is the level of detail we were operating at. The fact that the emperor (I described above) is revealed being another space wizard implies his role in the corruption of Vader (until they state clearly Vader is his disciple). The conflict within Vader is the loyality to the family vs the emperor. For luke is to the Jedi vs familial love. He finds a fantastic synthesis of that in the redemption.
Snoke comes into play in a story that has Luke, the Luke that redeemed Vader, well detailed. They did nothing to make the fall of Kylo believable. Is kinda like "dunno mane, he looked very dark-sidey to me, better to draw a lightsaber for good measure". More detail of Snokes would have served the narrative to make the fall more poignant.
Currently is something that goes in circles. Kylo is evil because Luke wants to lightsaber him (or at least is tempted). Luke wants to lightasber him because is evil.
It makes no sense. And since, opposite to Vader, we HAVE details of when and where Kylo corruption happened (training, Luke Jedi's temple), is difficult to imagine when and how Snoke came into play. What was he? The dude that sold Kebab outside the temple?

Also, FYI, I hated any ancillary material that was not X-Wing an TIE fighter videogames. Gotta build a better strawman I guess.

@Backfire I am not advocating a forceful re-insertion of old elements. But the new stuff must fit to do not create inconsistencies.
I stated that I am ok with any Snoke background - not necessarily backtracking but the characters needed more support. A skilled writer can create something new without shoehorning.
You say it would be strange in OT to know about Snoke - fine. But how can we then explain a power so big?
In narration, one should give details in proportion with the importance of the story. Unless you want to do like our good old RJ - for this guy, the story is secondary to the subversion of expectations.
I think Unit above gave a nice example of a subverted plot with an inverted FO/Republic that is way more compelling than anything these toothless hacks writing nu-wars ever conceived.
I already explained that the Emp was not only a generic user. Some other poster went in detail (Morden, some post ago) but in RotJ alone his ability to be a manipulator has more effect on the plot than the fact that is a wizard. Your conclusion that it was the force that made him Emperor is factually wrong. Don't believe me? Relevant imperial officers don't even believe in the force.

Backfire, those are all excellent points.

Perhaps I would be less concerned with TLJ in general if TFA explained anything about the First Order.

As it stands, I feel like they are still trying to show the "plucky underdog vs galaxy spanning empire" story again, only this time in order to establish the galaxy spanning empire they had to REALLY bend (or in my case break) suspension of disbelief about how galactic conquest even works.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
All these points matter to an aficionado of the fictional history of Star Wars, however to put them into the film by expositional scenes would slow down the pace while adding nothing to the enjoyment for people who aren't interested in such detail.

That's complete bull. There are dozens of techniques to flesh out a backstory, especially one as important as "how did we get here from there?" Any decent director can think of a way to catch up the audience without boring them or ruining the pacing (not that the pacing wasn't already Canto Bighted). Iran Johnson understands visual storytelling far better than JJ ever did, and his little Roshomon scenes demonstrate he is perfectly capable of incorporating important background into a film. RJ just didn't care, and may even have been hostile to the very idea of tying his movie (and JJ's) to the greater series.


Man, remember how boring it was in The Usual Suspects when we learned about Keyser Soze's background and how he formed his reputation. Totally ruined that film it did.

The problem I have with Snoke isn't that he needs fleshing out for his own sake, but his influence seems like such a large, missing part of Kylo Ben's story.

"I was too late, Snoke had got to him." Wow... how? What did he do, or say to achieve that? What is it that Ben Solo wanted so much to let him fall for the temptation of darkness?

And can the pointless "Well it was the same with the Emperor" comments please stop?

a) It wasn't relevant in the OT because it wasn't his story, and crucially neither was it Vader's. We only needed to know him from Luke's point of view. Conversely, Kylo Ren from the first film isn't a simple Vaderesque antagonist, and this is immedately in TLJ expanded upon with his chats with Rey.

b) It's hardly a secret that in the majority of cases probably, issues with the OT will be merrily glossed over because most of us were likely kids when we first saw the OT and it's waving a huge 'free pass' in our faces when we try to critically analyse it. It's hugely unfair on all moden SW films that they don't get that, but there's simply no way for them to do so, and I can't just force myself to enjoy something.

Backfire wrote:
TFA never hinted once there was some sort of great mystery around Snoke. Everybody in the movie seemed to know who he was.

But nobody in the audience knows.

 Riquende wrote:
Kylo Ren from the first film isn't a simple Vaderesque antagonist

That's right, he's actually much more like a protagonist - especially inasmuch as we know much, much more about him than Rey.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
All these points matter to an aficionado of the fictional history of Star Wars, however to put them into the film by expositional scenes would slow down the pace while adding nothing to the enjoyment for people who aren't interested in such detail.

That's complete bull. There are dozens of techniques to flesh out a backstory, especially one as important as "how did we get here from there?" Any decent director can think of a way to catch up the audience without boring them or ruining the pacing (not that the pacing wasn't already Canto Bighted). Iran Johnson understands visual storytelling far better than JJ ever did, and his little Roshomon scenes demonstrate he is perfectly capable of incorporating important background into a film. RJ just didn't care, and may even have been hostile to the very idea of tying his movie (and JJ's) to the greater series.


Man, remember how boring it was in The Usual Suspects when we learned about Keyser Soze's background and how he formed his reputation. Totally ruined that film it did.

I think we have a new term -
Canto Bighted:
After TLJ premiered a worthless subplot on a planet called Canto Bight, film critics have used the term "Canto Bighted" to refer to any subplot that was created simply include characters that don't have any relevance to the story being told. It has a strong association with films that run too long due to bad subplot.

This was a pretty good take on the subject....

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-last-jedi-killed-my-childhood-and-thats-exactly-wh-1821429836

A regular part of the makeup of hero stories is that there’s a problem—a monster to defeat, an issue to solve, an institution to topple—that the older generation has either allowed to happen or is actively participating in. It requires a young hero, a new generation, to solve the problem that the older generation can’t, or won’t. Older characters can at best act as mentors to the heroes—but they must fail so that the heroes can succeed.

For a kid, it’s an intrinsic, powerful story. It makes up the bulk of Western mythology, from the stories of Greek heroes like Perseus, Theseus, Achilles, to the tale of Beowulf. It connects to kids fundamentally. That’s why people have been telling stories about heroes, just like this, for thousands of years. But with few—very few exceptions—these heroes don’t get old. We don’t want to see our heroes turn into mentors, because we don’t want them supplanted. There’s something inherently tragic about aging from a hero to a mentor (or even worse, the hero becoming part of the problem). The message is that no one stays a hero forever. It’s why this part of the story is usually left untold.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

3) Lasers go straight.

Not sure why you're hung up on this given that Star Wars lasers do not behave like actual lasers, and the "lasers" in question may not have been in universe lasers.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

...nor will I be able to watch episode 6 without going "Oh, the Emperor died. No one probably cares, because not a single First Order trooper even noticed when Snoke died.

That The Empire fell when The Emperor and Vader died was a pretty big ROTJ plot hole.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

There's no sign they even knew who was in charge. Did Snoke lead from the shadows in his big super-flagship that most everyone seemed to agree was Snoke's flagship?"

Probably, yeah. That's why Hux is addressing the troops when Starkiller is fired. Going back to the OT, who does Palpatine talk to? Vader, and that's it.