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Some cool ideas here!

MDG; don't you think that Star Wars has enough strength and depth as a setting to transcend the genre of its original outings at this point? I'd love to see more original and different films in that setting than retreading the same story beats.

 Kroem wrote:
Where would you have gone after the Battle of Endor with a new trilogy?

The old Thrawn trilogy of books made into films or the Rogue Squadron series. Think they would have done really well and I liked the direction they took (mostly).

I definitely would have gone more of a Thawn trilogy, especially since they gave us a "prequel" for the character in Rebels, which was pretty good.

 Kroem wrote:
Some cool ideas here!

MDG; don't you think that Star Wars has enough strength and depth as a setting to transcend the genre of its original outings at this point? I'd love to see more original and different films in that setting than retreading the same story beats.

Yes and no, if I'm honest.

The feel of Star Wars is important to the whole of the thing. For us fans, Rogue One proved we're open to more exploration, as has the reception of Clone Wars and Rebels (man they have to follow up on the end of Rebels! Have to!).

But, to the casual filmgoer, Star Wars means certain expectations. So whilst the background of the setting can absolutely support a spy thriller type affair (and I've high hopes for the Cassian Andor spinoff series in that regard), I'm not sure how well Joe Public would adapt to it.




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 LordofHats wrote:
I definitely would have gone more of a Thawn trilogy, especially since they gave us a "prequel" for the character in Rebels, which was pretty good.

There's time yet Given the end of Rebels, there's most definitely time and room to explore that further.

Me? I'm on the third Thrawn novel now, and it's tying in wonderfully with both Rebels and Rogue One. And despite knowing Thrawn's apparent fate? I'm really not sure where it's going to go.

It's a bit like 40k fiction where the authors feel forced to put some Cool Marine Combat® in every novel!

Since this is the fan thread now I'll ask a question;
What did Palpatine promise the Trade Federation, Techno Union etc. to get them to pour their wealth and assets into the Clone Wars?

They were already enormously wealthy and ran rings around the Senate...

Less taxes and more efficient and fairer bureaucracy, basically.

Which when spelled out like that, sounds really boring imo.

Apparently, the Trade Federation never officially sided with the Sepratists. Officially, it was neutral during the conflict and mostly just profited massively by selling weapons to both sides throughout. Basically, they were Canto Bight, but we (thankfully) never had Benicio del Toro around to sit us down and explain it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Which when spelled out like that, sounds really boring imo.

Most of the build up to the Clone Wars is.... which is why Ep I/II are so bad.

I think there's a MUCh better version of the story that lumps those movies together, but such is life.

The Trade Federation didn't initially but just gave the CIS arms and money as well as secure access to the Outer Rim and logistical support in the free trade zones but later they joined as part of the Separatist Council.

Hmm a fairer bureaucracy sounds like a bad thing for these megacorps! It seems like an awfully big risk to take for lower taxes too.

Complete monopolies in their respective sectors might be a juicy enough prize, but only a fool would believe in a Sith Lord that laid golden eggs right? And you don't get to head up a galactic megacorp by being a fool.

Is it possible that he used the force to influence their minds like the Jedi so love to do?

I gathered what they were going for with the Trade Fed v Republic political conflict was the dark machinations of a scheming sith lord, beneath this mundane bureaucratic and political manoeuvring.

The idea is sound and worked well in some of the comics- Palapatine stages a false flag attack on his own life in order to make the case for personal body guards (the red guys rather than the blue senate guards)

The gradual eroding of freedom and expansion of power of the state head.

Stifling democratic corruption vs strong (evil!) autocratic rule

One reason it fell flat was that Sheev was never a well intentioned man, garnering as much power as he could in order to effect change. He was always a lightning throwing black robed villain, cackling madly in the wings. Thus the intention to inject a little grey morality into a previously black and white universe failed and we were left with expendable robots fighting expendable clones with boring politics.

I can still enjoy the PT as popcorn movies. Stuff irks me still like the Naboo battlefield that looked like the windows 98 screen or any reference to midichlorians.

Ah OK, so they just propped up the separatist cause to profit from the war? That's sneaky...

You guys are crazy, the build-up was the best part of the prequels! Trying to show the Clone Wars was the impossible task which they could never do justice to imo.

 Manchu wrote:
The Ewoks use a hang glider to drop stones on AT-ST in RotJ.

Ewoks also use hang gliders in the Ewoks live action movies and animated series.

Wow, thanks. Last time i watched it was when i would have been perhaps 5 years old, but i just remember a cave scene and a glider in it lol. Thanks appreciate it. Very nostalgic.

 Mr Morden wrote:

RJohnson was the idiot who gave the First Order all the shiny tech - but in another one of his idiot elements had to be told to turn on their own sensors

At least Johnson was not the one who gave First Order a superweapon much larger and more effective than original Death Star, despite having fraction of the resources. Giving Empire or First Order supertech just to cover plot points is lazy writing and your suggestion would have only contributed to the problem.
Cloaking devices in SW seem to work similarly to stealth in our world, where you can detect it if you know how and where to look. Which information First Order got from the Shady Guy. Much more intuitive than some new HyperSensor.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Casino World - defending this nonsesnse is impressivly brave

on your points:
1. No it just showed that one career criminal/arms dealer is neutral and that like people buy guns - wow they sure are edgy film makers,
Plus those on holiday at Casino world are not that bothered about a invasion of apparently everywhere.....likely cos half of the (like the viewers) are not really sure what is happening with this massive, instant invasion of the entire galaxy.

2. Really?? They spent a mostly tedious hour making sure that the rebels are completely and utterely screwed (mostly by their own stupdity) - and then had to do it again? Because?

3. Except it doesn't - it just underlines how incredably stupid the Rebels are - as you say - a basic procedure - but as the film hammers home every moment that no one has the mearest spark of intellegence - how does this help?

1. So did you make same complaint about Tatooine and Hutts in the OT?
And of course, it's not the 'massive invasion of the entire galaxy everywhere'. That was the whole point. Resistance vs FO is a regional conflict which just will have big implications for rest of the Galaxy.

2. It's a common and very effective storytelling method. I am sure you know multiple examples if you think about it. Sometimes a story can have heroes being screwed at every turn and every glimmer of hope is dashed by yet another turn to worse. Recent example, Battle of Winterfell from GoT. Or lets take for example Infinity Gauntlet storyline - the original one, though the MCU version had same beats too.
Casino World storyline does have problems in execution. I felt it was pretty lazily written, almost like it had stayed in draft format while screenwriter concentrated to refining other aspects of the movie. For example, Master Codebreaker was not even given a name, thus ensuring that the viewers sees him simply as a throwaway plot device instead of actual character who adds depth and feel of realism to the universe. It's equivalent of calling Jabba the Hutt just "a crime boss". "Hey Chewie, now we can pay our debt to the crime boss".

3. Rebels were not stupid, they were desperate. The mission was equivalent of delivering One Ring to Mordor. Which nearly failed because of Sauron's basic security measures...

 Kroem wrote:
What did Palpatine promise the Trade Federation, Techno Union etc. to get them to pour their wealth and assets into the Clone Wars?

They were already enormously wealthy and ran rings around the Senate...

As I understand it, in the case of the Trade Federation, Sidious had supported Gunray's rise to power and, at least from their perspective, had provided the political support to build up their armed forces and kept the Republic from dropping the hammer on them when they blockaded Naboo. After the blockade was broken and Gunray was put on trial, we can also presume Sidious had a hand in keeping him free and in position - Gunray also ends up being characterized amongst the separatist leaning worlds as an example of an honest businessman driven to extremes because of a fickle and out of touch Senate.

In their case specifically I think the Trade Federation supports the Separatists because Gunray does due to his ties with Sidious, if they had the complete picture, knowing that Sidious orchestrated the tax scheme they were protesting against in the first place, or what he ultimately planned to do, they may not have done so. I assume some of the big players in the separatist alliance had a similar relationship with him, and still more were legitimate neutral parties.

It's weird that we never really saw anyone who genuinely believed in the separatist cause. Lets be honest, it had quite a bit of merit to it as there was a lot wrong with the Old Republic.

The closest we got was Dooku's speech to the captured Obi Wan, but that probably wasn't sincere.

The funny thing is; just like the OT, most of the details of this stuff was added to the prequel era years later and beefed it up. I think that's one of the big struggles with the current era; since the final film isn't out yet, we're still working with pretty limited extended content. One of the things I keep feeling when I rewatch TLJ is that I really really want to play around in the world it leaves us with; particularly in videogames (not that that's ever going to happen....). One of my big fears with IX is that it will close off this era a little too quickly to really enjoy the potential.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kroem wrote:
It weird that we never really saw anyone who genuinely believed in the separatist cause. Lets be honest, it had quite a bit of merit to it as there was a lot wrong with the Old Republic.

The closest we got was Dooku's speech to the captured Obi Wan, but that probably wasn't sincere.

That is the strangest scene.... I kind of like it but at the same time I have no idea what its trying to get across. I assume he's trying to plant some paranoia in the Jedi, but even in the expanded content it doesn't feel like it really goes anywhere.

 Kroem wrote:
It's weird that we never really saw anyone who genuinely believed in the separatist cause. Lets be honest, it had quite a bit of merit to it as there was a lot wrong with the Old Republic.

The closest we got was Dooku's speech to the captured Obi Wan, but that probably wasn't sincere.

Absolutely. The separatists should have had a genuine and sincere leader at some level.

Backfire wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

RJohnson was the idiot who gave the First Order all the shiny tech - but in another one of his idiot elements had to be told to turn on their own sensors

At least Johnson was not the one who gave First Order a superweapon much larger and more effective than original Death Star, despite having fraction of the resources. Giving Empire or First Order supertech just to cover plot points is lazy writing and your suggestion would have only contributed to the problem.
Cloaking devices in SW seem to work similarly to stealth in our world, where you can detect it if you know how and where to look. Which information First Order got from the Shady Guy. Much more intuitive than some new HyperSensor.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Casino World - defending this nonsesnse is impressivly brave

on your points:
1. No it just showed that one career criminal/arms dealer is neutral and that like people buy guns - wow they sure are edgy film makers,
Plus those on holiday at Casino world are not that bothered about a invasion of apparently everywhere.....likely cos half of the (like the viewers) are not really sure what is happening with this massive, instant invasion of the entire galaxy.

2. Really?? They spent a mostly tedious hour making sure that the rebels are completely and utterely screwed (mostly by their own stupdity) - and then had to do it again? Because?

3. Except it doesn't - it just underlines how incredably stupid the Rebels are - as you say - a basic procedure - but as the film hammers home every moment that no one has the mearest spark of intellegence - how does this help?

1. So did you make same complaint about Tatooine and Hutts in the OT?
And of course, it's not the 'massive invasion of the entire galaxy everywhere'. That was the whole point. Resistance vs FO is a regional conflict which just will have big implications for rest of the Galaxy.

2. It's a common and very effective storytelling method. I am sure you know multiple examples if you think about it. Sometimes a story can have heroes being screwed at every turn and every glimmer of hope is dashed by yet another turn to worse. Recent example, Battle of Winterfell from GoT. Or lets take for example Infinity Gauntlet storyline - the original one, though the MCU version had same beats too.
Casino World storyline does have problems in execution. I felt it was pretty lazily written, almost like it had stayed in draft format while screenwriter concentrated to refining other aspects of the movie. For example, Master Codebreaker was not even given a name, thus ensuring that the viewers sees him simply as a throwaway plot device instead of actual character who adds depth and feel of realism to the universe. It's equivalent of calling Jabba the Hutt just "a crime boss". "Hey Chewie, now we can pay our debt to the crime boss".

3. Rebels were not stupid, they were desperate. The mission was equivalent of delivering One Ring to Mordor. Which nearly failed because of Sauron's basic security measures...

1. No totally different - the crime lords are part of the problem which has the Empire as the top evil. It supposed to be a whole new world with a vague new Republic, having one dodgy criminal / arms dealer say that oh no's he sells guns to military is not exactly highlighting the evil - its just pretending that they are trying to say something when the whole fillm is an empty of any message as a really empty thing.

2. Nope - this was just crap lazy writing - coparing Infinity Gauntlet to the gak pile that is TLJ is hilarious - in the former they take time and effort to make thier film - not throw it to a bunch of kids with crayons. Battle of Winterfell was awful -not TLJ awful but getting there. As i said the film was already hideously tedious - having a happy go lucky fun ride (escaping the inescapble pursuit) to casino world to do nothing, fail at that and then fail again when they get back was just wasting more time and showing how stupid the entire slow motion chase of tedium was.

3. The Rebels were not stupid If you look up stupid in the dictionary it has a joint entry for the First Order and the Rebels

The ring is agian massively different - if you can;t see the diffference I really don't know what to say or where you should get help.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
It's weird that we never really saw anyone who genuinely believed in the separatist cause. Lets be honest, it had quite a bit of merit to it as there was a lot wrong with the Old Republic.

The closest we got was Dooku's speech to the captured Obi Wan, but that probably wasn't sincere.

Absolutely. The separatists should have had a genuine and sincere leader at some level.

Grevous definitely took things from manageable to completely confusing in that regard.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
It's weird that we never really saw anyone who genuinely believed in the separatist cause. Lets be honest, it had quite a bit of merit to it as there was a lot wrong with the Old Republic.

The closest we got was Dooku's speech to the captured Obi Wan, but that probably wasn't sincere.

Absolutely. The separatists should have had a genuine and sincere leader at some level.

Grevous definitely took things from manageable to completely confusing in that regard.

Grievous is an interesting side-case as his legends and cannon characterizations are largely identical, and depict him as this tragic hero who helped liberate his people from an insect race only to have their victory cut short and his people marginalized by the Republic because said insect race had a Senate seat and his didn't. His tactical brilliance as described in said materials is in turn hampered by the fact that he hates the Republic and its people on a personal level.

Not that that really gels with him twirling an imaginary moustache and declaring it 'time to abandon ship'.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

The Jedi were shown to be more or less a law unto themselves. Part of the military hierarchy, but not bound to it. Kinda like Space Marines, I guess. This allowed for more nefarious Cats Paw type missions (such as where we first meet Saw), and dark ops type stuff. So even though they were clearly The Good Guys, there was room for off the cuff adventure.

Thinking about it now, this is one thing that kind of bugs me about the Jedi of the PT. . . They are depicted as monks, Sherlock Holmes, Jason Bourne, the A-Team, and John Wick all rolled into one. . . No effort was there to really explain their place in the universe other than, The Force, and TRADITION (spooky scary noises!). . . They were described as advisors, but why? It seems more and more, to me at least, they they are a sort of Mary Sue organization. . . They are that main character of every YA novel out there (the I don't fit in, but I have The Special that means I can do all the things and no plot point is too strong for my plot sword and plot armor)



As for where do I think they *ought* to have gone for Ep. 7??? Well, I think we could've opened with Leia at some unknown planet negotiating a deal to have this planet join the republic (maybe for some reason, they'd been left out of the old republic?), but one of the planetary leader's assistants is an infiltrated member of FO and they attempt an Operation Valkyrie type thing (bomb under the conference table). . . I think for fan service it would be somewhat important to have Leia always remain on the "good guys" side, and being the victim of a terror attack would allow audiences to keep that view. Ep 7 is also where, even if we never saw him on screen, I'd have done some explaining of who/what Snoke is, why he's leading Kylo, and FFS I would NOT under any circumstance have had Kylo remove his helmet in the first fething movie!!!!!! Ruins the entire mystery of the character. . . Save it for EP 9 to fully reveal that Kylo is really "Ben" Solo!. . I mean, visually, with the helmet, and the light-broadsword, he's a cool character and has a bit of menace and proper villainy, right up until he takes his fething helmet off and we see he's just an angry manchild.

As to the setting of the Disney Trilogy ...

... it’s actually kind of fascinating!

First of all, the New Republic and the Empire co-exist. That alone is astounding. Now, in the EU of the past we have had independent “states” like the Corporate Sector, the Hapes Consortium, the Chiss Ascendancy — but these were all what one might call the Luxembourgs of the Star Wars setting. The movies have always presumed that the galaxy is more-or-less centrally ruled by one great power. In fact, the implication is that the political justification of the Clone Wars was to prevent a major secession. So the idea that the galaxy could have more than on Great Nation is super interesting, especially they were formerly understood to be mutually exclusive.

Second, it’s interesting that the Empire can neither simply be swept away nor does it continue as a monolith. The old EU also assumed a splintered Remnant and that makes sense, considering the power structure was somewhat incoherent, except inasmuch as everyone ultimately was subject to Palpatine. Having multiple Imperial factions is neat and showing us the hardliners is the natural thing to do. The same thing applies to the Rebellion — we have to keep in mind that the GCW was not fought between the Empire and the Republic but rather between the Empire and an insurgency. How many of those insurgents can make the transition to a peaceful life? I think it’s especially fascinating to imply that Leia herself cannot stop fighting.

Unfortunately, none of this is really in the films.

I'd be super down for a film series about a bunch of Rebels who just can't stop fighting after the Battle of Jaku functionally ended the conflict. Maybe they go in for one last good fight, and maybe they find the Empire is the same way. It would be rather topical considering some world events

For me, the big mistake with setting the stage for the new trilogy was making Jakku Tatooine 2.0. Had Jakku been even a little more populated, a lot of wolrd building could have been done with background posters or monitors of Snoke or recruiters in the street looking for lost kids to shove into Stormtrooper armor. Even just people concerned the FO might attack and someone else waiving away their concerns with New Republic rhetoric would have gone a long way. I really wouldn't want the pacing of 7 to suffer for an explanation of the current political situation, but a lot more could have been done to build it in the background if the setting hadn't been such a blank canvas.

ANH didn't really need this because the Empire was an omnipresent force established from the outset as in control of everything. Much of the plot of VII is seeing the FO gain the upper hand, which is really confusing when the setting isn't a part of who they manage to overcome.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

The Jedi were shown to be more or less a law unto themselves. Part of the military hierarchy, but not bound to it. Kinda like Space Marines, I guess. This allowed for more nefarious Cats Paw type missions (such as where we first meet Saw), and dark ops type stuff. So even though they were clearly The Good Guys, there was room for off the cuff adventure.

Thinking about it now, this is one thing that kind of bugs me about the Jedi of the PT. . . They are depicted as monks, Sherlock Holmes, Jason Bourne, the A-Team, and John Wick all rolled into one. . . No effort was there to really explain their place in the universe other than, The Force, and TRADITION (spooky scary noises!). . . They were described as advisors, but why? It seems more and more, to me at least, they they are a sort of Mary Sue organization. . . They are that main character of every YA novel out there (the I don't fit in, but I have The Special that means I can do all the things and no plot point is too strong for my plot sword and plot armor)

The Clone Wars and Rebels help considerably with this.

Clone Wars show that the Jedi were a varied bunch in terms of personality. United by a common philosophy, rather than creed.

Rebels shows Yoda’s regret at how easily they were convinced to go from Peace Keepers (asked, never ordered. Services available to all) to Generals. And how that ultimately corrupted them, allowing Palpatine to win,

I haven't read enough of the new books to state anything definitively but Alphabet Squadron did show the surviving Imperial fleet elements beginning to splinter off along their own loyalties - we also see instances where at least some of said elements faithfully carried out their orders for Operation Cinder only for their respective Palpy-bot to sit back and let them run out the rest of their days hunted by a vengeful Republic.

If anything it looks like Lucasfilm want to establish a more strict timeline on the dissolution of the Empire and its reconstitution from remnants to the First Order so that it only happens once and not repeatedly over and over. As a result, stories involving the Empire's ultimate inability to cope with losing the Emperor and ultimate defeat now occupy a narrow space between 4-5ABY, stories involving the formation of the New Republic, hunting down Imperial stragglers, and the reconstitution of the Empire into the First Order occupy a broader space between 4-34ABY, and the conquest of galaxy by said resurgent empire will occupy the narrative time between 34ABY and whenever Rise will take place, perhaps longer, depending on what happens.

With that in mind, the Sequel Trilogy seems to be shaping up to be a 2nd attempt at Dark Empire, with Kylo Renn occupying Luke's place in that story, and bringing with him a lot of the trappings of the Legacy of the Force era empire with him. And what comes after may eventually resemble a Legacy era style two-state galaxy.

 LunarSol wrote:
For me, the big mistake with setting the stage for the new trilogy was making Jakku Tatooine 2.0. Had Jakku been even a little more populated, a lot of wolrd building could have been done with background posters or monitors of Snoke or recruiters in the street looking for lost kids to shove into Stormtrooper armor. Even just people concerned the FO might attack and someone else waiving away their concerns with New Republic rhetoric would have gone a long way. I really wouldn't want the pacing of 7 to suffer for an explanation of the current political situation, but a lot more could have been done to build it in the background if the setting hadn't been such a blank canvas.

ANH didn't really need this because the Empire was an omnipresent force established from the outset as in control of everything. Much of the plot of VII is seeing the FO gain the upper hand, which is really confusing when the setting isn't a part of who they manage to overcome.

I think that is one thing the latest trilogy does fail at. I mean, if we look at places where conflict happens in the OT, and even PT:

Yavin IV - Rebel's are hiding there to minimize civilian casualties and keep out of sight of the empire
Hoth - rebels hiding to minimize civilian casualties and stay out of sight
Endor - strategically important due to shielding protecting DS Mk.2, Empire hid it here to minimize prying eyes from civilian populace/prevent rebels from blowing up until it was ready.
Naboo- battle took place, battles in the street, presumably lots of civilian casualties (off screen, of course)
Bug Planet - strategic importance due to manufacturing capabilities, basically entire populace participates, so minimal civilian casualties.


Jakku - A battle took place here because. . . reasons? Most of what is shown has already happened has little to no plausible explanation done.

Just to throw my two pennorth into the ring, I kind of dig TFA and TLJ (not seen Solo yet) and very impressed by Rogue 1.. it's just the "Look at us! We're so hip! We cast a WOMAN! And a BLACK GUY! Just like they're REAL PEOPLE!" virtue signalling PC stuff that sticks in my craw.

For what it's worth, I think Finn, Rey and Poe are good characters and actors. They deserved their roles on merit, not so Disney could go tick some boxes on a diversity quota form. That said, it's not like Star Wars is a documentary. If you're taking life lessons from those fllms... you need to rethink things

 Mr Morden wrote:

1. No totally different - the crime lords are part of the problem which has the Empire as the top evil. It supposed to be a whole new world with a vague new Republic, having one dodgy criminal / arms dealer say that oh no's he sells guns to military is not exactly highlighting the evil - its just pretending that they are trying to say something when the whole fillm is an empty of any message as a really empty thing.

2. Nope - this was just crap lazy writing - coparing Infinity Gauntlet to the gak pile that is TLJ is hilarious - in the former they take time and effort to make thier film - not throw it to a bunch of kids with crayons. Battle of Winterfell was awful -not TLJ awful but getting there. As i said the film was already hideously tedious - having a happy go lucky fun ride (escaping the inescapble pursuit) to casino world to do nothing, fail at that and then fail again when they get back was just wasting more time and showing how stupid the entire slow motion chase of tedium was.

3. The Rebels were not stupid If you look up stupid in the dictionary it has a joint entry for the First Order and the Rebels

The ring is agian massively different - if you can;t see the diffference I really don't know what to say or where you should get help.

1. Crime lords existed during the Old Republic, they existed during the Empire, they exist during the New Republic. Why would this be particularly shocking or preposterous or a 'message' or 'statement' of some kind which you think it apparently is? Hey, in very first Star Wars movie heroes employ services of a blatant criminal and killer.

2. By same logic I could say that whole battle in Wakanda was just gigantic waste of time, since Thanos was going to come anyway with enormous powers which would render the whole battle irrelevant, which it did. And I was talking about original Infinity Gauntlet storyline, the comic, which used similar storytelling structure: everything went wrong for the heroes again and again and every glimmer of hope was dashed, with nearly all heroes brutally killed or maimed until Thanos was utterly supreme - except for tiny oversight which he made and his whole scheme came crashing down. Oops. As for Battle of Winterfel, it was very well structured story with excellent poignancy but which suffered from several poor writing decisions, most notably almost none of the protagonists dying after being 30+ minutes in obvious verge of death, which lessened its overall impact.

It's common and quite basic storytelling structure. Your idea basically seems to be that the villains and heroes should always trade successes tit for tat like two pro wrestlers trading wins and putting each other over. But it is nonsensical to think that every story buildup should follow similar structure, there are number of ways to build the emotion and suspense.

3. It really seems to me that you can't tell the difference? Frodo dumped his escorts without explaining his reasons for them and proceeded alone (though Sam followed him). As a result he was caught by Shelob and then by Orcs. Sauron was not expecting them, it was just his normal security for spies etc. On the surface, whole enterprise seems exceedingly stupid, which is what Denethor called it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:

First of all, the New Republic and the Empire co-exist. That alone is astounding. Now, in the EU of the past we have had independent “states” like the Corporate Sector, the Hapes Consortium, the Chiss Ascendancy — but these were all what one might call the Luxembourgs of the Star Wars setting. The movies have always presumed that the galaxy is more-or-less centrally ruled by one great power. In fact, the implication is that the political justification of the Clone Wars was to prevent a major secession. So the idea that the galaxy could have more than on Great Nation is super interesting, especially they were formerly understood to be mutually exclusive.

Second, it’s interesting that the Empire can neither simply be swept away nor does it continue as a monolith. The old EU also assumed a splintered Remnant and that makes sense, considering the power structure was somewhat incoherent, except inasmuch as everyone ultimately was subject to Palpatine. Having multiple Imperial factions is neat and showing us the hardliners is the natural thing to do. The same thing applies to the Rebellion — we have to keep in mind that the GCW was not fought between the Empire and the Republic but rather between the Empire and an insurgency. How many of those insurgents can make the transition to a peaceful life? I think it’s especially fascinating to imply that Leia herself cannot stop fighting.

Unfortunately, none of this is really in the films.

Agreed, as I said elsewhere I think the setting is really intriguing. It's sort of take of post-WW1 Europe where the Nazis (First Order) try to 'erase their shame', Versailles Treaty, Weimar republic and all that. Alas the movies have all that enormously dumbed down. In TLJ they mention Resistances possible allies, which then don't show up. But it's not elaborated who they are. When it was announced that Lando would come back in Ep IX, it raised my hopes: obviously he would be some sort of major political leader with signifant resources. But in the teaser, we only see him flying the Falcon, wearing similar clothes he had in ESB. It's like he was just older version of OT Lando, same they did with Han. Major yawner if so.

My personal theory was that in Ep IX, Resistance searches help from very last possible belligrent which could stop First Order...the Empire. Who knows, maybe remnant Empire is led by Admiral Pellaeon -types, oldschoolers who don't actually like this new First Order and the Knights of Ren. I am always intrigued by 'deal with the devil to avoid Apocalypse' -style story hooks.

I guess the complaints about 'boring political scheming' of Prequel Trilogy made them really allergic for trying to show anything more complicated than simple White Hats vs Black Hats. Which is a shame, as the political maneuvering really was not what dragged PT down. It wasn't particularly well executed, but the problems of the movies were elsewhere.