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

Except the story wasn't incomplete. The original trilogy told a complete story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Everything important that was shown in the PT was already told to us in the OT.

Also, I really doubt people walked out of Jedi in 83 saying "I wish the Emperor had more depth, but it's okay! This is an incomplete story after all, so we'll eventually get to know more about him!" Like, did that ever happen? I think "it didn't matter back then because people just didn't care" would have been a bit more believable.

 

Is it necessary to know Snoke's backstory in order to follow the story in the ST so far? If it was then everyone's first complaint should be "I can't follow the story of this trilogy". But it isn't.

And the backstory to the Emperor was that the Emperor was a politician who kept it a secret that he was actually a Sith lord who wanted to be an Emperor. We never got the story of how and why he came to that specific point of being a Sith lord or a Palpatine on Naboo. It just told us that the Republic destroyed itself because he wanted it and was able to get red of the Jedi in the chaos.

We know the Imperials lost their leader in ROTJ. So the FO have found a new one in Snoke with as much backstory provided as to how he became a powerful dark side user as the saga gave us as for Palpatine.

Clearly, no deception like Sidious's was necessary with the Jedi out the way. The power vacuum left by Sidious's departure needed filled. Someone like Sidious simply needed to slip right in there. I don't see a vital piece of story needing to be told as to how that came about because I can follow the story fine without it. Same as I didn't need to know how he got to be Palpatine, senator of Naboo, before I could follow the story of Sidious in the PT and OT.

 

Yes.

You can follow the story of this trilogy? Going into RotJ, we knew the Empire still reigned supreme, the main character had taken a hit (but not so much the Rebellion itself), that Luke now had to deal with Vader being his father, Han needed to be rescued.

What do we have going into Ep9 except there better be a rather substantial time jump or we find out the galaxy isn't as we thought and there are in fact enough New Republic citizens left willing to fight the First Order now.

It was filled. The New Republic.

He ran for office or was appointed by the Naboo government. That's not an outlier. That's an everyday event. Snoke cobbling together a shattered Empire, coming up with limitless resources, constant references to Snoke somehow influencing Ben Solo (the current Supreme Leader), etc, etc is not an everyday event.

 

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Ok. Since you haven't been able to follow the story. The defeated but still belligerent imperialists left over from the Civil war have adopted a new leader called Snoke and the are resurgent.They have attacked the New Republic. And are now able to conquer the entire galaxy if they want to . Which they do.

See brief and super-obvious explanation above. Fairly straightforward logic. If it was necessary to know more about Snoke in the ST than we did in the ot about the Emperor's background and career then "I can't follow this story" would be the number one complaint about the ST so far. And it isn't. If you cannot even follow the story of the films then all other "comlaints" would be trivial. Complaints so far are mainly about the story not being what some people want. Not that they can't follow it.

The power vacum within the imperialists created by the death of the Emperor. They need an Emperor in order . And an evil dark side user like Sidious would fit that role.So there's no deception necessary with the FO.

A Sith Lord masquerading (literally, according to Lucas) as an uassuming citizen of Naboo and managing to get elected to high office without anyone with any potential sensitivity to his evil nature (an ability which is depicted as an everyday event when Jedi are involved ) being capable of suspecting him at any point even right up to the point when he's about.

The successfu,l secret corruption of a large portion of the galactic senate while maintaining a seemingly legitimate role right under the noses of the jedi council is not an everyday event.

Exactly how Sidious is able to pull off (all off-screen and in the past) while still seeming bona fide to everyone is worth a trilogy itself (besides the PT which is actualy about the Jedi allowing Sidious's will to be worked). But those omissions don't stop me from being able to follow the story of the PT films themselves.

 

With what resources? What is was Snoke's plan? To wipe out hope? Is that the shared plan of the First Order under Snoke? Why would anybody sign up to "wipe out hope"?

Or did they just follow Snoke out of fear, like they seem to now be following Kylo out of fear. If not, then why are they now following Kylo. If yes, then why would they adopt a new leader because they feared him?

If you can't even follow the actual complaints v. what you wanted the complaints to be ....

Why did they need an Emperor from outside and not within? And considering they no longer possessed the power, there was no power vacuum. The power of the galaxy went to the New Republic.

That's the PT. You are complaining about not enough Palpatine info in the OT. Is there going to be an Episode 6.25, 6.50 and 6.75 for Snoke's rise to power?

This is a big difference
Empire is an established government power at the beginning of ANH
First Order is not.

If ANH began with the Old Republic and Palpatine just sent a huge power of the sun beam to take over the Old Republic in a matter of hours, you'd be scratching your head as to how that was even possible.

 

@Jester J Binks We never found out how Palpatine was able to infiltrate Naboo society. After ROTS it is pretty apparent that everyone in the Imperial society is terrified of the Emperor because he's a dark and evil Sith lord. Why would Snoke not


"If you can't even follow the actual complaints v. what you wanted the complaints to be ...."

I was responding directly to complaints that the ST has a story that's inherently unfollowable due the omission of Snoke's backstory. If that's not your complaint then there's realy no need for you to object to me responding to them.

The rest of your post seems to be asking for reasons why you should think the ST in its current form is good and not about what it needed and should have had from the beginning.

 

@Martoto77
So when you go to vote for your Senator, your first question is how they infiltrated the state they are representing?

That's wild.

What about somebody running for President or similar? Do you wonder how they infiltrated your country?

Not gonna say what that is.

 

Are we still talking about the backstory to a fictional character we already know to be deceiveing the other chararcters within the story in order to follow the story? Or are we talking about what we should be told about a candidate before we consider voting for them?

Taking a break from casual trolling for a wee while Jester.

 

@Martoto77
So legal representative in the Senate - we need to know more about that.

Outside force taking over the government in one day with no explanation as to how they became more powerful and more funded than the actual government entity - no need for more info.

Just to be clear this is your position.

 

Not a legal representative. A Sith Lord managing to set himself up as an ordinary citizen on Naboo in order to become an elected member of the Senate. We'd like to know how that worked. How it started. Like how Snoke became what Snoke is and therefore attractive to the FO as a replacement for Palpatine. We don't need to know more about either in order to follow the story of them using that position they've assumed, which we see in Episodes I, I and III for Palpatine. And in VII and VIII for Snoke.

 

This is nonsense.

How Palpatine became a senator is not relevant to the story. The information we needed to see is how he was able to become chancellor (and we see that in the PT). This isn't like Snoke at all, who came out of nowhere to repair an Empire that was pretty much dead narratively at the end of ROTJ.

Again, the whataboutism to justify Snoke's lack of exposition is just amazing to me.

 

We never needed to know how Palpatine became chancellor in order to follow the story in the OT concerning the Emperor.

In fact we never knew there'd been a chancellor. It was assumed for a long while that the Empire was an enemy society that conquered the Republic.

That false assumption was perfectly adequate to explain the Emperor for about 20 years.

Snoke's backstory can therefore remain similarly unspecified for as long as it likes.

Is it the case that people want the logical post Endor circumstances spelled out in dialogue only because it's counterintuitive to the storyline they imagined or hoped for, e.g. The galaxy is reset to pre Naboo crisis state of affairs?

 

No, it can not because TFA and TLJ are sequels, while the OT was created in an empty vacuum. That is the key difference that people defending Snoke's lack of exposition are not getting or simply ignoring.

And people are upset with the lack of exposition not because their own theories or whatever are wrong, but because it is lazy storytelling. The only reason things are set up like this is to try to mimic the narrative structure of ANH. However, it doesn't work as well because when ANH was created it wasn't sequel to a six-part story with established plot points.

 

Star Wars and the OT weren't made in a vacuum. It was made so that character's missing backstory did not interfere with the storyline in those three films.

 

The OT was made in vacuum. There were no Star Wars films prior to 1977. There was nothing to build off.

 

So, the latest excuse to complain about how Snoke’s mysterious backstory is a problem is that “it isn’t in a vacuum like the OT was”?

Not sure I get it. Is it that hard to believe that Snoke was just in hiding? It’s fine to want to know more about him, but I fail to see how that lack of knowledge is an objective flaw.

 

Snoke just "hiding" is weak writing and storytelling.

And it is an objective flaw because the lack of exposition about him makes the transition from ROTJ to TFA disjointed.

 

The movies haven't even said that Snoke has been in hiding. Nothing, not even a hint, about his background has been revealed.

 

How? You please provide no explanation.

 

Because it hurts the overall saga.

We have spent six films with Palpatine as the ultimate evil in the galaxy. But apparently there has been this even more powerful dark-sider who has been hiding out somewhere in the galaxy and there is no prior mention of him in the previous six films.

To make the problem even worse, instead of giving him a proper introduction, they half ass it and try to repeat the ANH dynamic with Snoke and the FO already being an established power in TFA. Granted, this would have been fine if these movies weren't sequels to the PT and OT, but they are and that is bad, lazy storytelling IMO.

 

Because he wasn’t a factor back then? Political icons come and go. Why is it so hard for you to accept that Snoke just wasn’t around thirty years ago?

 

I don’t believe that’s the issue. It likely has more to do with the fact that no mention is made of what this insanely powerful Force user has been up to before TFA. He’s just there and everybody in the galaxy knows who he is - which is perfectly understandable given the circumstances in universe, but it’s very odd that the movies just assume that we know this guy from before.

Even Dooku got a bit of backstory! “Count Dooku was once a Jedi” - okay, cool. So he’s left the Jedi Order. I can work with that.
But Snoke? N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it’s ODD.

 

It is hard to believe because the six prior films has established Palpatine as basically evil reincarnated. But all this time there was this even more powerful dark-sider hiding out in the galaxy. It just cheapens everything from the first six movies.

Snoke's concept and then lack of introduction hurts the overall narrative of the saga. I am glad Rian killed him off, because the character concept was always dumb and cheapened Anakin and Luke's accomplishment in ROTJ.

 

Snoke obviously wasn't hiding. He was on the cover of Centillionaire magazine each and every month because nobody else was close to that level of wealth.

He was part of the Star Wars Hollywood scene. His movies were extremely popular. And with a galaxy as the ticketholder base, one movie would make you super rich with even a modest hit. Many viewed his movies as nothing more tha propaganda.

And then all those TMZ videos of him landing and departing at the Supremacy hangar.
"What do you think of Hosnian Prime?"
"A cesspool of treachery. Somebody should wipe it off the face of the galaxy. Metaphorically of course."

"What about Darth Vader?"
"People say he was evil. But were people breaking down your doors and stealing your property (soft voice) like slaves.? (normal voice) Yes, stormtroopers could break down your door. But only if you gave them a reason. Think about it."

"What about the rumors that you pickup young boys and girls?"
"Pure rumors. Ask anybody working for me. They will tell you I'm wise. They follow me because I'm a real leader. Thanks. You guys are great, but I have a meeting about a 'Death Star'. No just kidding. Or am I?"

TMZ "That guy has so much personality."

 

No, it really doesn’t. Palpatine was a bad guy, and now Snoke is a bad guy. Having a new villain emerge later on doesn’t make defeating an earlier villain any less meaningful.