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Those didn’t enter the SWEU until much later, after several “episodes” with interesting plots. Heir to the Empire, X-Wing, the Han Solo and Lando Calrission series, etc.. Yeah, Kevin J Anderson brought in the Suncrusher and Kyp Durron early on, but in science fiction Kevin’s a bit of a JJ Abrams himself.
The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy started with the bed fully Ambered.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I for one prefer to the old EU’s “this time, it’s war. But with a super weapon. But not like a Death Star, this time it’s a super super star destroyer but instead of guns, it’s got four arses”, each time getting dafter and dafter. Like the indestructible dustbin that can blow up stars. Or the really big gun which can blow up stars.
Yes those are kind of an internal trope, and we see two instances, arguably three I suppose, in the sequels.
And at least we didn’t have starships made from coral with a Jedi squished in as a power unit.
I like this video that explains why super weapons never work in the Star Wars universe...
'It is a source of constant consternation that my opponents cannot correlate their innate inferiority with their inevitable defeat. It would seem that stupidity is as eternal as war.'
- Nemesor Zahndrekh of the Sautekh Dynasty Overlord of the Crownworld of Gidrim
TBH even if the worst of the old EU is worse than the sequel movies the sequels are still inexcusable. It's understandable when a low-budget licensed novel given to a lowest-bidder hack like KJA, it's far less so when you're talking about a movie with a budget larger than the GDP of some countries. Disney had every resource possible for doing it right, they just decided to keep shooting themselves in the foot and spent obscene amounts of money on making movies that are borderline unwatchable.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Those didn’t enter the SWEU until much later, after several “episodes” with interesting plots. Heir to the Empire, X-Wing, the Han Solo and Lando Calrission series, etc.. Yeah, Kevin J Anderson brought in the Suncrusher and Kyp Durron early on, but in science fiction Kevin’s a bit of a JJ Abrams himself..
For all that it was a good read, the Han Solo trilogy introduced an ancient space station massively bigger than the Death Star in the home system of the guy who thought the Death Star was too big to be a space station...
And Heir to the Empire still leaned into the superweapon trope, with the Katana Fleet. Still an awesome series, though.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/09/12 00:24:48
insaniak wrote: For all that it was a good read, the Han Solo trilogy introduced an ancient space station massively bigger than the Death Star in the home system of the guy who thought the Death Star was too big to be a space station...
Took me a minute to figure out what you were referring to since the original Han Solo trilogy had no such thing, but the blame goes with some of the post-ROTJ books that introduced the superweapon station and its associated nonsense. It's unfortunately one of those lose/lose things, either give up the idea of having a single consistent canon or accept some other author's awkward and poorly thought out story elements.
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BobtheInquisitor wrote: I would argue the katana fleet fits more as a weapon than a superweapon, something to turn the fleet battles rather than obliterate all opposition.
Exactly. It was something of value to a rebuilding Empire but wouldn't have any purpose at all if they weren't short on crew and ships. In the pre-ROTJ era it would have been a bunch of old relics suitable only for scrapping.
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BobtheInquisitor wrote: I don’t remember that, but I just remembered there were two Han Solo trilogies.
TL,DR of it is that one of the sequel novels came up with the bizarre idea that Corellia was an artificial system created around a massive superweapon station by some forgotten ancient civilization with god-level technology, so presumably Han would have known that stations that size could exist. The Han Solo trilogy didn't directly involve it but presumably it was mentioned somewhere in the background.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2023/09/12 00:42:37
It looks heinous and ungainly. Compare to anything else we’re immediately used to and it sticks out like a sore thumb.
I do wish we’d had more novel designs from the sequels, but there is something to be said for sticking with a successful overall design, and tweaking it into newer models.
The prequels and Clone Wars did however do an excellent job of precursor craft. Nothing exactly analogous to what was to follow (barring Y-Wings of course), but enough cues introduced to show the development as pretty organic,
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I think if you got rid of all the missiles and stuff under the wings and the turret that sticks out from under the chin it would look fine. Maybe even the two sets of wings out a bit more so they’re more similar in shape/length for a greater X Wing nod.
The overall profile of it is fine and even being more of a gunship than a fighter works, but its definitely overdesigned in the details. The extra top engine that has a distracting fin in front of it is a big part of that, as is the whole.... cockpit thing. Two cockpits and gunner pod gives it a very.... Fantastic Four mobile vibe and then there's the bottom gun. I get someone was inspired by WW2 but the way it dangles out in front like that does the whole thing no favors.
Automatically Appended Next Post: On a separate note, I will never stop being mad that the E-Wing wings aren't mounted on the top of the craft so that it actually loooks like an E.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/09/12 14:16:05
LunarSol wrote: I remember leaving Episode 7 wondering the same things and finding out there was a bunch of background material explaining that the Republic didn't consider the FO a real threat but Leia did so she basically made a PMC to keep them in check. As much as I enjoy Episode 7, this is probably the most significant of Abrams's sins as far as passing the buck when it comes to world building.
Wonder how they fund it.
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BobtheInquisitor wrote: I don’t remember that, but I just remembered there were two Han Solo trilogies. And they both had some cheese.
I reads the Thrawn stuff by Zahn, assumed that would be the next three films, and stopped. Wow, I was wrong...
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/09/12 15:19:59
LunarSol wrote: I remember leaving Episode 7 wondering the same things and finding out there was a bunch of background material explaining that the Republic didn't consider the FO a real threat but Leia did so she basically made a PMC to keep them in check. As much as I enjoy Episode 7, this is probably the most significant of Abrams's sins as far as passing the buck when it comes to world building.
Wonder how they fund it.
Judging by the size of their fleet and the position of the needle on the fuel gauge, they don't.
I'd guess donations and skimming money off public funds if they have functionaries in the right places. Maybe they have some businesses whose profits can be tapped into, but again considering their equipment, those would hardly be successful or sizable corporations.
Nehekhara lives! Sort of!
Why is the rum always gone?
Same way the Rebellion did it but with less stealing.
And considering Ackbar was a high ranking leader it stands to reason that the Mon Cala were probably involved quite a bit.
The Resistance was sort of paramilitary. As suggested above, a PCM trying to check and expose the threat of the First Order.
I suspect the plan was that once they had enough clear evidence of atrocities? Get the full Republic Fleet out and give them a kicking.
Hux however did what Palpatine didn’t, and successfully used his super weapon to cow resistance, by not only blasting the single most cohesive government, but its attendant military assets.
Immediately after Snoke’s main cruiser came out to play, and the sheer scale of the First Order was writ large, continuing the “well….guess I’ll just be looking the other way”.
Until the circle is complete over Kijimi, with Palps waggling his arthritic grasp once more. Except this time, there’s some chance of keeping his withered fingers bottled up, hence Lando rallies…well….everyone to come and give it all a good shoeing there and then, once and for all.
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Leia funded the Resistance through private wealthy donors. Between being an Imperial Senator, Princess of a well respected and martyred planet and General of the Rebellion she has a lot of friends in high places that owe her favors or just trust her when she says the threat is real.
This is actually the main arc of the sequel trilogy; but each part kind of fails it in some way, though TLJ probably hits it best:
Episode 7 gives us our conflict. The Imperial inspired First Order is building power in the Outer Rim but isn't considered a viable threat by the New Republic. A private Resistance is looking to stop them, but fails to do so before they use their super weapon to decapitate the New Republic leadership. Unfortunately, a lot of this is left to supplemental material and not really explain in the film at all.
Episode 8 sees the First Order attack what little Resistance remains in their way. While our heroes attempt their own plans, Leia seeks to unite her benefactors who ultimately betray her; proving that they only cared to back the winning horse and will happily surrender their people to tyranny to maintain their privileged status. This is done fairly well, but has to try to explain it all due to the lack of world building in the prior film and is already long in the tooth trying to subvert all the subplots along the way.
Episode 9 is... in theory, about the galaxy recognizing that it cannot rely on those in power and uniting to stand against their oppressors. It eventually pays a bit of lip service to this, which is more the soul of the rejected scripts and instead... IDK.... this one is kind of a mess.
Yeah the 3 films together clearly have SOME elements of sanity to the story writing; but so much is left off-screen that what we get on screen is disjointed. Heck even Luke failing for many decades and going into hiding makes sense, but again that whole story arc is handled offscreen so we only get the aftermath.
7 was several decades in story telling too late. It should have been much sooner after the fall of the Empire and the rise of the new Republic. Then we'd have learned just who Snoke is, why he's important and given him more than 5 mins screen time to die in; we'd have been on Luke's journey with him to try and recreate the Jedi and seen the faltering issues in that; we'd have seen Han and Leia lose their son to the Dark Side; seen them lose the Falcon.
We'd also yeah had an idea of why the Republic isn't mounting itts own fleet and why the First Order was battling "Rebels". Films 7 and 8 setting all that up could have made for an epic 9 against a planetsized superweapon and then on the strength of that we could have seen 3 films cover the rest of the story they outlined.
TLJ kind of sets him up as a sort of puppet for the Emperor reborn. A way to keep things going to plan without revealing himself or something.
You know, rubbish stuff.
If anything, Leia setting up the Resistance was a perverse admission that Palpatine had at least half a point. That the Republic had become irrevocably corrupt, with Senators solely interested in lining their own pockets, and those of their Donors.
Indeed, Leia was acting as Anakin might. Doing The Right Thing, Not Necessarily The Legal Thing. Bending the rules as far as they’d go, but not quite breaking them.
And yes Dakka, I’m aware you may be reading this and thinking this is Sequels apologism/revisionism. And….fair enough. Every has their opinion.
All I ask is you engage in good faith
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From the films I at least get the feeling that the Republic had issues before the Sith arrived, they just capitalised and amplified those issues.
The Trade Federation and other powerful bodies were already throwing their weight around. Sideus just encouraged them to be even more overt and even more antagonistic.
Another thing to consider is that the Republic had strict laws and rules, but was basically leaving many fringe worlds and systems to their own devices. It had grown large enough that it wasn't really concerned with the plight of those outside of itself. Tatooine is a prime example since its a world where slavery and other crime was rampant just outside of the Republic's control. The Empire clearly expanded its boarders and took in more and more worlds under its influence.
Did Palps and his Space Dad nudge things along a bit? Yes.
But they only exploited the corruption, and found ways to speed it along. They didn’t themselves instigate it. It was a weakness they found and exploited.
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The difference between the Senate after the defeat of the Sith Empire and the rise of Sidious is pretty stark though.
Yes, corruption and bribery would have had a place but the political ascendancy of the Jedi kept things smooth.
An era of peace and the relegation of the Jedi to peacekeepers rather than sort of questing warrior monks meant that the Sith were able to influence events more easily and could insert themselves into positions of secret power.
By the time Sidious killed his master, he was already a popular young senator as Palpatine and had connections to various groups as the mysterious Sidious.
Plagueis and Sidious were able to successfully mess up the final years of the Republic because of the groundwork laid by their forebears.
Through his position and the ability to secretly manipulate a now massively corrupt Senate, Sidious gets a weak Chancellor elected and causes scandals to further weaken his already precarious position.
By the time the Trade Federation blockades Naboo, Sidious already has many Senators in his pocket and has stoked fear and division for years, which in turn allows him to form the Separatist Alliance.
Overread wrote: The Empire clearly expanded its boarders and took in more and more worlds under its influence.
Did it though? Vader was certainly able to pull a "might makes right", show up with a squadron of star destroyers, and land troops to retrieve his missing property but that seems like the same kind of control in name only that the Republic had. We see in ROTJ that Tatooine is openly controlled by the space mafia and the government doesn't seem to exist once Vader's squadron leaves orbit.
I think the picture the shows are starting to fill in is that not a whole lot changed for most of the galaxy when its rulers changed. The Empire was a bit more blatant about its tyranny but the people at the top collectively shrugged and switched loyalties to whoever was winning while the people at the bottom were either anonymous cogs in the machine or forgotten entirely. It's a rather pessimistic take on the whole thing but I guess it at least does a decent job of bridging the gap between the end of ROTJ and the incoherent mess of the sequels.
Indeed the Empire didn't so much expand its borders but control the ones it had.
Thrawn had a good (if brutal) idea in actually developing the Outer Rim worlds into useful planets. Lothal was the test bed for taking what was a largely agrarian planet and turning it into an industrial powerhouse to build resources for the Empire.
Sinar Fleet Systems did have a presence in the capital but Thrawn sold mining rights to the Mining Guild and heavily increased the industrialisation of Lothal to suit his plans.
AduroT wrote: Did any outside material ever explain who Snoke was? I don’t think he’s shown up in the comics at all yet.
They haven't completely filled in the "somehow" of Palpatine's return, but its effectively a long line of failed cloning experiments. Rey is the daughter of one of the failed clones and Snoke is effectively a kind of puppet body or something along those lines.
Personally I was pretty happy with Snoke's uncerimonious bisection, but mostly because I was hyped to see Kylo end up as the main villain.
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