ST Confusing State of Galactic Affairs

I like this movie. Am I disappointed Lucas's ideas were thrown out? Yes.

But that doesn't mean this movie isn't flawed. We could've had more explanation. They said they wanted emotion, not explanation to carry it. Why not both? It wouldn't have killed them to spend a scene or two discussing galactic politics, or maybe we could've seen 60 seconds of a senate debate before the planet got blown up?

 

Just because the movie gets a positive response doesn't mean people didn't have any criticisms about it. I've seen many threads and talked to people who weren't exactly sure about the state of the galaxy. And it certainly seems it detracted from their enjoyment of the movie, enough some overall thought positively of the movie. So, stop answering for 99% people and lumping them together, its ridiculous.

The point is the movie does a bad job of defining each player's roles. That's why people need to read the books to understanding each player's motivations and positions in the galaxy. Poor execution.

 

I thought everything was explained fine. The crawl talked about it and Hux talked about it. The only thing I think they should had added/kept in the movie was a Senate scene and that would had helped people a lot I think and would have added to the drama of Starkiller.


Sent from George Lucas' iPhone

 

Also, just throw money at Harrison so he doesn't insist on being killed. Pay him Robert Downey Jr. money. Who cares? He's the best character.

 

It's cute how you think repeating "poor execution" over and over again will make it true.

I also think it's funny how you apparently approach large numbers of random people in the street and ask them what they thought about the state of Galactic politics in The Force Awakens. I would imagine the question is confusing enough that they probably are, in fact confused that anyone would randomly ask them this question.

It's absolutely hilarious though, that you've apparently never heard of the maxim "show, don't tell" and even if you had, apparently don't believe it should be followed.

Also funny? That you apparently didn't understand that the First Order are the evil bad guys who want to conquer the galaxy and the Resistance are the plucky heroes that want to stop them. Because that's what their "roles" are and it seemed pretty well-defined to me.

Anyone else want to chime in? If you had a hard time understanding that the First Order was evil and wanted to conquer the Galaxy and the Resistance was heroic and wanted to stop them, please let us know. If there's "countless" people that feel this way, I'll gladly concede the argument.

If it took place where it does in the novelization, I think the problem is that it would have been the introduction to Leia in the movie, and having her zoom to the rescue alongside her Resistance fighters and immediately being reunited with Han and Chewie is a far more dramatically effective and yes, crowd-pleasing (re)introduction than a quiet scene of exposition about the politics of the galaxy.

 

Lol American idol now?

It's obvious you are a little lost so let me break it down for you. First of all you are speaking out of both sides of your mouth. You are basically calling the movie "dumb fun" yet also saying that they aren't explaining enough. You can't have it both ways. They are treating the audience like they aren't a bunch of half wits and giving them the credit that they will be able to keep up. It's obvious there is a small portion of the community couldn't keep up, or in your case refuse to. I cannot stress enough how important it is for a movie especially a sequel set 30 years after the last one to not fall into the trap of over explaining what has been going on the last 30 years. It simply does not matter more than the most basic broad strokes. The first order has risen from the ashes of the empire. The republic is secretly funding the resistance which was started by Leia. The sith are gone and Luke is missing. This is everything you need to get the ball rolling to begin telling this new story. Any other information can come from action and interactions as they become relevant

Star Wars works at its absolute best when the story is simple, streamlined, and structured. It's the characters, themes, mythology, heart, and all that good stuff that is deep. Why does a simple straightforward story work best in Star Wars? Because everything else about it is a fantasy, the skeleton of it needs to be simple for it to work. This is why fantasies are popular when done right, because people can easily follow what's going on while being immersed in the deeper meanings and characters I mentioned. When there is no simple structure in place it gets bogged down in explaining the plot - you never ever ever want to do this. This is half the problem with the first 45 minutes of TPM and guess what? After all that explaining nobody had any idea what was going on in the movie.

You tell the audience the bare bones of what they need to start the story. You sprinkle certain other things through out in the right places, and if some people are interested in the really specific specific details of certain things like the inner most workings of the republic, they can search out expanded material. That's what makes expanded material interesting to some people, it deeply explores the things that didn't need to be explained in the movie that certain people can read about different things. That doesn't mean the story can't be understood without it, because it very much can, but if you want to immerse yourself in every possible detail you can in the supporting material. This is great storytelling.

 

What's funny is that it's actually better for everyone to leave the unnecessary details out of the films. People who don't care aren't bored and people who want to explore things further can check out all the supplementary material (which of course also brings in more merchandising money).

 

I agree that not everything needs to be spoon fed to the audience for a movie to be good, but the state of affairs of the Republic and First Order are at the heart of the conflict in this movie, and a little extra time spent on this would have been helpful. Not tons of time, just a couple extra lines here and there to clarify what the Resistance was to the Republic and even a little to explain how the First Order was so well funded, when they were essentially the "Rebels" and not the legitimate government. If I (and plenty of other people who were confused) need to resort to outside material just to understand even basic information like this, then the filmmakers have not done a good job painting a picture of the state of affairs of this galaxy at the time the movie starts. Now, not everyone cares to know this, and plenty of people may find other elements of the movie, like overall character arc, or dramatic tension between characters to be enough to keep them entertained, but the fact that plenty of people were left confused means that in this element there was very poor storytelling.

 

It's happening now so you should be really sure.

 

It's definitely already leaning in this direction. They'll show enough information in the features to satisfy the masses, then force the die-hard fans to purchase additional media for more information. It helps with story pacing. Most audience members don't want to know the entire state of universal affairs or politics. They make the movies as action-y and LCD as possible and then, to satisfy us crazy nerds, they'll slam a ton of more superfluous info into books and mini-series.

 

That's just it though, and where I think the real "misunderstanding" is occurring here:

The state of affairs of the Republic and First Order are NOT at the heart of the conflict in this movie. It's a sideshow, like Alderaan's "rebellious" allegiance in ANH.

The state of affairs of the RESISTANCE and First Order are the heart of the conflict in this movie.

The Republic is basically irrelevant. So much so that they decapitate it halfway through the movie. Just like the Imperial Senate or Alderaan in ANH...they're window-dressing that doesn't have much impact on the plot at all.

 

I wont' argue that we could have used a couple of more lines of dialogue (which IMO is all it would have taken).

 

Well, actually the Resistance is a Republic based group, so, yes, it the Republic IS at the heart of this conflict. The First Order is not just trying to crush the Resistance, they want to destroy the entire Republic. Leias forces are just at the forefront of this fight.

 

Y'know, that movie Citizen Kane? Yeah, I just don't understand... why doesn't he just go out and buy another friggin sled? Huh? The movie never explains that! Such bad writing.

 

Jmacq1

When people have to go on the internet and LOOK UP important points like what was the name of the New Republic "home base" and stuff (really I know a lot of people who didn't even know what was even blown up outside of "some planets"), I am sorry it's a thin and not greatly written plot.

There is other problems with the plot/story as well. It's just one of them. Luckily plot/story was not what JJ was going for.

 

I don't think they're forcing anyone to buy additional material. Look at me, here I am having enjoyed the movie just fine, knowing that the guys that look and act like bad guys are the bad guys and the guys that look and act like good guys are the good guys, and I haven't bought anything other than a movie ticket.

The Senate can't get out of it's own way, because it couldn't get out of it's own way 60 years ago, so it's left to spunky Leia and her Resistance to fight at the sharp end.

The First Order is well financed and militarized, because dictatorships and buy guys are very often well-financed and militarized (otherwise they soon cease to exist). How are they well financed? They're a military dictatorship, they take stuff and kill those that resist, they tax the poor and extort the rich, you know, bad guy stuff. I don't need spreadsheets and an accountant to figure it out.

What are the goals of the FO? To eliminate the good guys and return to power, in the process eliminating Luke Skywalker and the Republic. They don't have to title the move "Revenge of the Empire" to figure that one out.

Now, the real question is this: How bad is the situation now? The Republic just took a major blow by having it's leadership taken out. Perhaps equally impacted is the First Order, having lost a massively expensive base and who knows how many officers and troops. How much does the FO have in reserve? Will the Republic be able to recover quickly enough? Does the Resistance now get more funding in light of the FO's offensive actions? Does the resistance absorb the shattered remains of the Republic military in order to take the fight to the FO? Tune in for the next episode of "The Star Wars" to find out!

 

A lot of people give great explanations using sources like the new book, the Visual Dictionary, etc.

Sure would have been nice to have had some of these explanations occur in the actual movie....

 

According to the Wookieepedia:

It seems that the Empire kept several worlds in the Core and in the Inner Rim, but had to reduce its armed forces.

From those few worlds the First Order expanded into the Unknown Regions.

Also:

The New Territories are between the Unknown Regions and the Trans-Hydian Borderlands... Are they neutral too? Or are they part of the First Order? They are a pretty big chunk of the Galaxy. If the First Order had kept those, it should have been acknowledged as a great galactic power and as a threat to the New Republic since long before Starkiller was fired...

 

TooMuchBBQ

The state they left the Resistance and First Order is interesting. It's just how they got to this point was not done extremely well. Again JJ decided to go with very heavy on the action/nostalgia/fun but light in other areas.

But going forward I think what will be interesting how they try to rebuild quickly. IMO both sides will try to recruit some of the "underbelly' to the galaxy. And by that I mean the gangsters, pirates, mercenaries, etc. I think that is the adventure Finn will go on since right now, he has no role. He isn't going to join the Resistance as some ground trooper. Finn is too important. But he isn't suddenly going to be some military leader. I think Finn will go off and try to recruit for the Resistance. Perhaps Poe along with a couple others come with him and it's on this recruiting mission, Finn finds the new female lead that will be his love interest.

 

Does anyone really not agree that we couldn't have used 1-2 more lines of exposition explaining this stuff? It's not a huge issue for me (I figured it out pretty much on my own... but I could see how others would not)... but it certainly wouldn't have hurt and 1-2 lines certainly wouldn't hurt the pacing.

"The Republic fleet wont' help us because of the treaty with the new order".. or whatever

 

I'm hopeful that post TFA we will see a full on "2nd Galactic Civil War" between the New Republic and the First Order.

I feel like the destruction of the capitol along with with Starkiller Base was a way for the two side to now be more on even footing. I don't know if Lucasfilm wants to hold on to the "Resistance vs First Order" for two more films and I thought it was fine for TFA, but I would rather see a full scale war between two superpowers.

 

You only need to look on these boards, and others, to see there are many people questioning the films logic and plotting. Even people who like the film are, for example, arguing with each other about how Starkiller functions and that it was a "lame" element of the film. People are quoting the visual dictonary in order to understand the socio-political backdrop. It's really not rocket science to see that this film has flaws. That your defence is that this was by design is a poor one, and quite insulting. TFA is "simple", it is "streamlined", but it's not very well "structured". If it were you wouldn't be having people arguing about shoehorned in Starkillers, 'Super Rey' or characters who just dip in and out for no good reason. The term 'dumbing down' is apt... and whilst I agree that making something simple and straightforward has a purpose, TFA (IMHO) takes it too far, to the point that the 'streamlining' of it creates inconsistencies, unclear motivation and reduces drama substantially. Does it kill the film? No, of course not, but it certainly reduces its quality in my opinion.

 

I agree, especially when they feel it necessary to give us 3 lines explaining that as long as it's still bright out on Starkiller Base, the weapon is not yet charged.

 

There are plenty of dictatorships around the world now, but most of their militaries are nothing compared to what the US has. The only example of a country that is a complete dictatorship with a powerful military that I can think of is North Korea, but even they are a shadow of what the US has in terms of military might. If the First Order is so powerful NOW, they must have been gaining power for some time. That they could do so without the Republic seeing speaks to either the stupidest government ever, or poor writing.

 

Thanks all for the great information. Much appreciated.

As others have said, I think that the level of detail we're discussing is almost entirely unimportant to TFA's general audience. I just enjoy it and got used to the massive amount of exposition available for the PT era- through the films, EU, and TCW (and now I'm pleased that Rebels is starting to flesh out the OT era. Are the new DC comics canon btw?). In that respect, SW superfans got a lot of 'fan service' over the past 15 years.

To me, the Alan Dean Foster novelization of TFA did not go into much further detail than the film did, which was frustrating. I totally understand why the film didn't, but the book was under no running-time constraints. Wendig's 'Aftermath' certainly has a lot of detail (though I found his style painful to read at times), but I'm not thrilled about having to wait for years for the next two installments.