ST Who's The Baddie?

Bigger, ultimate evil bads is sort of a template way back from the serials that Star Wars is based on. Good ole Flash Gordon's Ming the Merciless was an uber-bad guy, making Plageuis the uber-bad guy would work in the tone. The series does have an inherent mythological ultimate evil vs good at it's core. The bad guys are personified by the Sith and the Dark Side of the Force. I really don't want to see a non-Sith as the main bad guy for the entire series, they should just be straight-up evil Sith. No inner-conflict, no mercy. What Star Wars does is take ideas and concepts that are cheesy and present them as straight forward dramatic stakes, which would take the bad guy with resurrection powers and make it deathly real. As for grabbing Plagueius, it keeps the whole series as an overriding whole as opposed to a random bad guy who has no connection to Palpatine or Vader or the Sith.

 

Plagueius would just be hokey. For most people, he was just another odd Star Wars throwaway name, with less impact than the term 'nerf herder'. Basing an entire trilogy around him, especially when it was made abundantly clear that he was outright murdered, would be foolish.

Not. Going. To. Happen.

 

I can see your point, but personally I don't care for an ultimate villain/Satan expy.

And my points on how resurrections hurt the total dramaturgy of a story have still not been adressed. Once you open up the possibility of resurrection, you can never be sure if anybody is perma-dead or only on vacation. It would cheapen any on-screen death considerably and considering how we will get a bunch of spin-offs and maybe even Episode X, XI and XII this is just not a very wise decision. At all.

 

A powerful Sith Lord that was obsessed with learning how to cheat death, researching it his whole life, and then learning how to do it would just be ridiculous?

We've already seen Jedi return as force ghosts, yet I'm supposed to believe it would be impossible for a Sith to achieve something similar.

If Plagueis did learn how to cheat death, and never even taught Sidious, then I would assume he would never teach anyone. So this doesn't just open up the box for any character to return from the dead.

A lot of people are quick to come in this thread and hate on the idea of Plagueis being the villain, and then never give a logical explanation of who or what should be the villain.

Come up with a more likely villain, who can pose a greater threat than Sidious/Vader, that will tie all three trilogies together, I'll be waiting.

 

Even if Plagueis is killed we could never be sure if all his knowledge was really destroyed. Having read the uncanny X-men for a while I'd always expect the next future villain to stumble across the knowledge and start the whole resurrection circle again.
Or what if some hero character proves popular, yet dies in the movieseries? Wouldn't the producers be tempted to bring him back in that case, maybe have him resurrected by the villain for one nefarious purpose or the other?

I'm just not very trusting when it comes to resurrection. The new BSG was destroyed through it for me, my appreciation of the uncanny X-Men was somewhat destroyed and I also didn't like it when watching Stargate. In my experience, if you open that particular can of worms, the worms crawl everywhere sooner or later. That's why I have zero trust this would be handled in a sensible way.

Because that's not our job? That's Arndts job? Asking us to give you a better villain is like asking a book-critic to write a better book than the one he criticized.

And I've already given my opinion I'd quite like to see a hedonist Sith or KotoR-Mandalor-Type of villain. But really, as long as there is not too much rehashing I'll be quite happy.

 

Still waiting.

I never said it was your job, but if you want to propose that Plagueis is a bad idea, then you should come up with a better one.

So let me get this straight, Star Wars should rule out a possible villain for the ST cause you had a bad experience with Uncanny X-Men?

Obviously by the end of Episode IX there would have to be a way to destroy Plagueis forever. I would try to think of a way myself, but according to you it's not our job to speculate, that's Arndts job.

I'm not saying Plagueis is going to be the villain for sure, I'm just saying I have yet to hear a better option.

 

I'm not convinced he is the best possible villain. I'd rather see a more politically motivated villain, someone who is dissatisfied with democracy for instance.

No, I'm not spending my creative juices to think up a villain for a forum discussion. That would be a waste as I have to invent protagonists and antagonists on a regular basis.
If you want to do so for fun, by all means, do.

And if you had read my post, I was offering a couple of other examples besides the Uncanny X-Men. I can add even more. ST III wasn't a very convincing movie for instance and I never liked John Sheridans resurrection as space jesus in Babylon 5. Do you have any counterexamples for well done resurrections?

 

I would think it would be kinda awkward to have the villain be someone who was only briefly mentioned in ROTS, and then he was completely ignored in the OT.

Oh wait is this the same tired argument that "if you don't read the EU, you're not a fan of Star Wars"?

 

It is true, he could bring back the dead.

 

Nor have I. Pretty much what we've come up with is 1) Plags 2) fallen jedi/skywalker and 3) an upstart imperial remnant and or alien invasion or the like. All sounds kinda crappy to me, but then again, Arndt and Lucas may be going in a completely different direction then all that for all we know.

 

Why does the threat have to tie the trilogies together? Why must the threat be yet another Sith? Why must it be done in the worst, anime cliche way possible?

The glue that will bind the trilogies together will be the Skywalker bloodline, and, more narrowly, the lessons learned in each generation's transition to the next. Looking at it as a form of one-upmanship, where the threat must be bigger and badder than anything else is the path to bad writing. It's what's plagued wide swaths of the EU ("I see your Death Star and raise you a Sun Crusher!"), and really isn't something that should be desired.

The threat needs to be credible and, ideally, somewhat personal to the heroes. Vader worked because he went from unknowable monster to fallen father. Palpatine worked because he went from trusted mentor/adviser to traitor. What would Plagueius be, other than a shallow attempt to press the "Crap just got real" button? Where would the connection be?

Two ideas (that will probably be dismissed because they're not big enough):

A fallen student of Luke's would be a better idea (it echoes Obi-Wan's failure, it gives the personal connection). Bonus points if the fallen student is a contemporary of the main protagonist.

Jedi who went into self-exile during the purge would also be better (it allows us to explore the thematic differences between trilogies (old order vs. new, the generation gap itself)).

If I'm right, the new trilogy (especially the first movie) will be all about passing the torch to the next generation. It's a theme that all but writes itself, and given Arndt's previous work, seems like a sure bet. Plagueius doesn't play into that at all.

 

Right now I have the idea of a sibling of Sidious. Someone who was set on the path of darkness from the get-go just as Jaina (or whoever is the protagonist) was basically set on the path of good from the get-go. It could raise some interesting questions on upbringing versus free will, destiny versus choice. Jaina could then attempt to redeem the villain, maybe fail, maybe succeed.

 

Would that not simply be Palpatine 2.0? Everything BTS I've read/heard/seen tells me that Sidious was Sidious just because. He's evil incarnate. Seeing someone slightly more evil doesn't really interest me that much and devalues Sidious in my eyes.


Same with 'fallen Jedi'. I've seen that for 6 movies now (well, retroactively at least) and countless times in the EU (i.e. KotOR).


I'd be down with a spirit/shade of Plagueis, manipulating the criminal underworld against an infant Republic and Jedi Order. As for the visual, something like the Necromancer in The Hobbit would be ideal.

 

So you're suggesting another fallen Jedi student, after Dooku and Anakin, and yet you speak of cliché.

Why would Jedi continue to train force sensitive's if their students are always going to turn to the dark side, makes it seem like the Jedi are their own worst enemy. The new Jedi have the force ghosts of Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin to learn from their previous mistakes and help tweak the Jedi Order into perfection. They should be evolving, training more fallen students is not a good way to show their growth.

If it is another fallen student, maybe at the end of Episode 9, after the threat is destroyed Luke will be the last of the force users. Luke then gathers all holocrons and lightsabers in the galaxy and destroys all the evidence of the Jedi/Sith existence. To ensure that no more force sensitive's are trained and another student doesn't turn to the dark side again, Luke commits suicide, bringing balance to the force once and for all.

I'm not saying it has to be Plagueis, but please not another fallen student, I would rather have the villain be something entirely new then another fallen student.

 

Hmm. You can;t complain about cliche when your top idea for a villain is a fallen student of Luke's. That might be the biggest cliche they could use. Personally, I feel even a return to Plagueis would feel more original then having another student of the Jedi fall to the dark side. It wouldn't come off as an echo to the average fan, but rather a simple rehash of what has already been done.

Your second idea isn't to bad, but I get the feeling people wouldn't like it very much. It drives some fans nuts with the EU on how many people survived the purge. I think the general attitude is that the more secret Jedi from then that keep popping up, the less special Obi-Wan and Yoda become including Yoda's line to Luke, "When I die the last of the Jedi you will be." Not saying I think the idea is horrible, but just suspecting what the complaints would likely be to it.

In the end I would prefer anything other than your first option. I seriously don't want that. To me that would feel like the most cliche and dull route they could go. Has nothing to do with if it is epic enough. It has everything to do with already traveled terrain within the series itself.

 

Why should Sidious sibling have the same personality as Sidious? That would be extremely boring. I thought more of a conflicted person struggling with the dark destiny that was imposed on him/her by his/her father. Such a person would never really have had a real choice of what to do with his/her life and may still feel obligated to follow his/her fathers wishes. It would be much harder to fight against someone like that compared to the pure evil of Palpatine or Vader. At least Palpatine and Vader voluntarily chose the dark side. Someone who was raised by a Sith would never really have that option.

 

They are not going to dig up some dude that supposedly died at the hands of the guy who formed the empire. No way, guys.

 

Wow! I really hope Lucas and Arndt's story conferences went better than this.

 

Haha probably. I wonder what those two think of all the stuff us fanboy/girls are saying.

 

Note that I didn't say cliche, but anime cliche. The whole "That was just my lieutenant, now face my wrath!" thing is just bad. Is the idea of a fallen student better? Your mileage may vary, but at least it would have an immediate tie-in with the characters. And, like I and others have said, Plagueius is a throwaway name. He matters only insomuch that he was Palpatine's master, and potentially had knowledge that Anakin wanted (remember: Palpatine himself wasn't sure that Plagueius actually had discovered anything, but the potential was all the carrot a desperate Anakin needed). That the EU did something with him is immaterial. Hell, the stripes on Han's pants have a backstory in the EU.

But, yeah, as a matter of practicality, he won't be the villain. Those for the idea are literally thinking they can sell the audience on "Remember Palpatine's master who was mentioned, like, once in RotS? Very briefly, you may have been in the bathroom or getting a snack. Well, he's not dead and will be the villain for the next three movies."

Not going to happen. There's a better chance for a rabid Jawa being the big bad than Plagueius.

 

They probably think we're expecting the perfect Vader-like villain this time. Well, they could have had that with Darth Maul if they didn't kill him off too soon.

Like the Prequels, who and what ever they come up with probably won't please everyone.

 

Pretty much a fact. You can't please everybody cause everybody has their own idea what the villain/movie should be like.

 

Another fallen Jedi is a cheap cop out. According to AOTC backstory, there were only twenty Lost Jedi, including Count Dooku, and he was the only one to turn to the Dark Side... Until Anakin, of course.

Why, all of a sudden, in the span of 50 years, would three Jedi not only leave the order, but fall to the Dark Side and turn Sith? After thousands of years it didn't happen... EVER, but now it happens three times??

Unrealistic in my book.

 

Not saying it needs to be Plagueis. All I really care about is a good villain. To me though a fallen student would be a major redundant cop out.

 

How about an Exar Kun, who's only original purpose was to learn the power of the Force and its dark side for himself?