Saga Mega thread: Sequels and spinoff films and the overall saga

IMHO, that's not correct, through Kenobi's explanations in ANH audiences got the basics in a nutshell:

BEN An elegant weapon for a more civilized
time. For over a thousand generations
the Jedi Knights were the guardians
of peace and justice in the Old
Republic. Before the dark times,
before the Empire.

LUKE How did my father die?

BEN A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who
was a pupil of mine until he turned
to evil, helped the Empire hunt down
and destroy the Jedi Knights. He
betrayed and murdered your father.
Now the Jedi are all but extinct.
Vader was seduced by the dark side
of the Force.

and a short while later...

TARKIN The Imperial Senate will no longer
be of any concern to us. I've just
received word that the Emperor has
dissolved the council permanently.
The last remnants of the Old Republic
have been swept away.

TAGGE That's impossible! How will the
Emperor maintain control without the
bureaucracy?

Already back in 1977 audiences learned that there had been the Old Republic with the Jedi as its guardians, but then came an Empire and the Jedi were hunted down and destroyed. And we do learn that the Empire is ruled by an Emperor.

Given the powers of the Emperor (as suggested by Tarkin) it seemed rather probable that he had something to do with the end of the Old Republic and the Jedi Order.

It was not before ESB that we learned about the relationship between Palpatine and Vader. Of course, we wanted to know more and ROJ delivered.

 

They’re some vague points about the Empire. Nothing about the Emperor personally. We didn’t know how he reached the position of Emperor in the first place. Where he came from. How he was trained in the ways of the Force. We got his backstory 16 years later. During those 16 years Lucas at times said he wouldn’t even be making the PT. I don’t recall a lot of whining back then about the mysterious Emperor. Or more importantly complaining about it when the OT movies came out.

 

We knew what the Empire was. I still don't know what the First Order is. And if I do because that's all there is to it ....

What probably happened is all those brainwashed Fat Order Stormtroopers were forced to sign up for credit cards to build the F.O. fleet. Ep9: Stormtrooper Bankruptcy

 

In 1977, the GFFA was completely unknown territory to everybody. We were thrown into the middle of this galactic conflict where there was an evil empire that a group of freedom fighers wanted to overthrow. From the get-go, there was this feeling that a lot of stuff had already happened and we accepted that. It even excited us, as we got curious about the untold backstory.
When "Episode IV: A New Hope" was added to the title of the first movie and TESB arrived as Episode V, it got even better. Now, we knew for sure that there was a possibility that we'd actually get to see the backstory one day!
Even if Episodes I-III had never been made, though, there was always that feeling in the back of our minds that everything had a backstory - including the Emperor. He never appeared to have just popped up from nowhere.
Of course, since those episodes were made, that grounded feeling, that there was a background to it all, that there were reasons for why things had happened the way they'd happened - including Palpatine's rise to power - was reinforced. It was all even more interconnected than we had thought.

With Snoke, it's not like that at all. If TFA had been EpX, the comparison would've made sense, but as it stands, there's no room for that feeling that we might get to see what Snoke is, where he comes from or why he has become the leader of a bunch of nasty neo-Imperials. He's just there, bossing everyone around and using the dark side like nobody's business - and then he's unceremoniously killed off.
There was literally no sign of him in any of the previous episodes. There's not even the slightest hint as to what connects him to the story. He's obviously at least as powerful as Sidious was. He also appears to be a lot older than most other characters in the movies. So where the heck was he thirty years ago? Hiding from the Sith? Being trained in the ways of the Force by some unknown dark side master in an uncharted region of the galaxy?
Who knows? Anything's possible - and I guess the movies don't have to tell us.

My point, though, is that the case with Snoke is not very similar to the case with the Emperor, at all. I enjoy Snoke as a character. He's got a great personality, is portrayed with excellence by Andy Serkis and is just visually stunning.
He is rather one-dimensional, though. He just exists - and then he doesn't.

 

Ok, so there is now the problem that the Rebels are aware they can just just use ships as superweapons. Slap in a droid to pilot (see BB-8 in AT-ST) and the size of the F.O. fleet becomes less significant.

So will we see this in Ep9, and if not, why not? Will JJ return the favor to RJ and just pretend it isn't important. Maybe even a joke about "that's not how hyperspace works" to the person suggesting it.

Or will JJ actually realize that this is a thing now and just have to incorporate it. Will the F.O. use human shields to stop these attacks. How are the F.O. stormtroopers not human shield hostages considering they were brainwashed into this?

 

The kamikazes weren't exactly causing the damage that we saw in TLJ. Hyperspace became a superweapon.

 

They've always known that ships can be used that way, though. Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops and this is the reason why.
Maybe they will do it again in EpIX, maybe not. One has to take into account that ships are valuable resources and that there might be a lot of collateral damage (as evidenced by what we saw in TLJ).

 

That's always been a poor excuse for Ep8. Han isn't inferring they might superweapon something else. He's suggesting they are the ones in danger. The line is to explain that hyperspace is actually a skill that requires precise calculations. Holdo's move was the opposite of precise. It was "let's see what this does". What if she just broke up into a million tiny pieces? What if the impact wasn't enough?

When Holdo first stopped staring out the window and hopped in the "driver's seat" (Let's not even get into the one person crew to fly, when Han needed Chewie to lock in auxillary power), I figured she was going to move close enough to cut off the path between the fleeing Rebels and the First Order. The FO would rush to blow up the target in the way, which would be enough time for the Rebels to get out of range.

That's logical.

But the whole thing was a plot device to get Finn and Rose out of their predicament, now wasn't it? That's just about everything in TLJ. Not that a move is logical but that the plot needed it so it didn't collapse on itself.

 

Like I suggested in the TLJ complaints thread, there must have been something unique about Holdo's Kamikaze attack to explain why we never saw or heard about it before (obviously you must know exactly your point of re-entering normal space, blame JJ for making that possible in the first place with TFA...).

Just look at Solo's turnaround maneuver in ESB. Theoretically he might have gone for a microjump (Captain Needa and crew hadn't yet been able to verify that it had become impossible for the Falcon to jump), yet Captain Needa is astoundingly relaxed.

Yes, the logical thing to do would have been to use the large ship as a shield to protect the others from being shot down like sitting ducks.

Makes you wonder how she actually earned her position of "vice-admiral".

 

Hux was also very relaxed with Poe rushing the Dreadnought. He could have just hyperspaced into the megaguns, or we shall say BB-8 could have.

 

Holdo's self sacrifice was an absolute last resort. The resistance, completely out of fuel, had no means of escape. Meanwhile it's surviving members were steadily getting blow up. Under ordinary circumstances, there is no way they would have sacrificed something as valuable as a capital ship.

R.E. Snoke: First off I like that Kylo killed his master (I assume) establishing himself as the 'big bad' for IX, something that Vader never did. He has gone from worshipping his Grandfather, to outstripping him. However if we get to the end IX without finding out...

1. Where the Empire/First Order got him from
2. Why he wants to take over the galaxy

I do feel that the narrative arc of the ST will be weaker for it.

 

You're actually suggesting that hyperspacing into another ship would not be incredibly dangerous to everyone involved?

 

I'm suggesting they clearly didn't know the results or they would have been doing it left and right.

There were reservations about the supercollider, the first nuclear test, nuclear testing in space, etc, etc.

So what sounds more logical? Using the capital ship to block the laser path of the FO or just going for broke? What if it had much less impact? What if it had much more and the rebel ships were incinerated in the "blast radius"?

And she had the nerve to chastise Poe for being reckless? The Poe that made sure the Dreadnought wasn't there to just bombard Crait from space, let alone the escaping ships prior.

 

You can't compare the Emperor and Snoke. This is copy and pasted from one of my older posts:
"Let's go onto Snoke, you do NOT put the worlds blame on Snoke like half the good guys did in 7, say that he's reason for Ben being evil, he's been in his head since such a small age, for the next ep to NOT address or go into depth in any of that. What we got instead was a really weird and, in all honestly a not visually pleasing flashback which explained it stupidly. I don't want to read books about it, I don't want to watch some 20 minute cartoon series explaining it all. If it's a big deal in the movie then it should be explained there too."

Now to add onto that, we literally barely ever heard about any of the main protagonists talking about the emperor in the OT. I'm pretty sure he was mentioned in one brief line by Tarkin that you could easily miss if you're not paying attention in ANH and mentioned by Vader two or three times in ESB. He really isn't made out to be the main evil guy or someone the characters are worrying about, the story focuses on Vader as the villain. We didn't even SEE the emperor in ANH, and in ESB we saw him only ONCE in a hologram for about a minute in the ENTIRE movie.

Are you seriously going to compare that with the way they portrayed Snoke in TFA and TLJ? They put emphasis on him for no reason and intentionally lead you on just to throw in a cheap "OMG" moment for the audience. Not only that, I'm sure back then they didn't put out Star Wars Magazines or media titles saying "Who is Emperor?" or promote him in that way. But that's what we got for Snoke, I remember seeing like 3 magazines hyping up Snoke's background. Stupid.

 

This supports the notion that Holdo did know what a hyperspace collision does.

 

Holdo knew what hyperspace collision does and she didn't share that with the Resistance attacking SKB, Poe's strike force attacking the Dreadnought, the ships running out of fuel and already doomed?

Man. I thought I hated Holdo before. Did she know this during ANH? Well, of course she did. Han knew it.

Seriously though, how does that support the notion that Holdo did know what a hyperspace collision does?

 

You said:

"So what sounds more logical? Using the capital ship to block the laser path of the FO or just going for broke? What if it had much less impact? What if it had much more and the rebel ships were incinerated in the "blast radius"?"

This supports that notion because if she knew, then her decision makes a million times more sense.

 

That doesn't seem logical at all. Why didn't the ships that were at 1/16th on the fuel gauge do it before then? You can't say they couldn't spare the ship. You can't say they didn't want to die (they did).

It's almost like saying somebody knew the next roulette number, because why else would they place a bet that would leave them in financial ruin? And they didn't do it before because ... they couldn't risk financial ruin.

 

Well, Hux did order them to destroy Holdo's ship as soon as he realized what was about to happen. Remember that they could tell she was preparing a jump into hyperspace, but chose to ignore it. When they saw the ship turning to face them, it was too late for them to do anything about it.
If a ship that has their attention prepares a jump to lightspeed and simultaneously turns around to face them, you can bet it won't make it as far as the Raddus did.

 

Well, Ithat's just another problem. Ignoring the Raddus turning around until it was too late was a suspension of disbelief in and of its self.

As Hux said earlier "What good is all this if ..." All this being a massive # of lethal Star Destroyers.

And I'm really not sure how they didn't literally pass the Raddus as it turned around. They were both in constant acceleration for 18+hours. They must have been going ridiculously fast. And the Raddus has to now counteract that acceleration to turn around.

Kind of like "how did Rose catch up to Finn on Crait?"

 

Good questions, definitely!
...but remember: When things don't seem to add up, it was probably the Force

 

Finn was right all along. Rey could have just force crushed the SKB mega-cannon array. That *is* how the Force works.

 

There was no whining because most of the Emperor's backstory wasn't relevant to the story in the OT. There is an evil empire and it is ruled by an evil emperor, who is a dark-sider and corrupted the heroes fathers years ago. That is all you really need to know to make the OT story work.