ST Poll: Will There Be An Empire?

From Wookieepedia

Remember those are star systems, not planets. That's a lot territory for a ragtag group of a few thousand rebels to cover. Even if they had millions in their ranks that would still be a huge undertaking that would likely last decades.

 

Nice. This is actually also what I am hoping for...

The similarities of that idea to what is generally happening these days in Iraq make that sort of storyline relevant to our generation as well.

 

What are you getting at? You want the Empire to go on and on because it controls the entire galaxy?

I don't want Star Wars' galaxy to be anywhere near as huge as ours. It really begins to get ridiculous with the figures...

 

I agree. When Qui Gonn said that most of the stars in the sky have a system of planets, I found that hard to believe. Especially when looking at the Senate rotunda, it definitely doesn't translate properly. Unless the galaxy is considerably smaller...

I imagine a building crew that first constructed the Senate rotunda having to tell the chancellor why they couldn't make it larger to accommodate more systems.

To quote Billy Bob Thornton in Armageddon, I imagine them saying "Our current construction budget only allows us to accommodate about 2.8% of the star systems in the galaxy, and I beg your pardon chancellor, but it's a big a** galaxy."

 

No, the question is why it would take so long. The answer pretty simply is that galaxies are big. The GFFA isn't nearly the size of ours. It's only about 1.5%-7% the size of the Milky Way but it's still tens of millions of star systems in the Empire.

 

Just because most stars, according to Qui-Gon, have a system of planets doesn't mean that each system has life (or even democracy!). Why would every system of planets = a senate seat?

 

Right, there are 7,100,000,000 stars in the GFFA, with approximately 3,200,000,000 habitable star systems. Only about a billion of these systems have life. Only 69,000,000 of those systems met population requirements for Imperial representation.

 

According to the official guides(the visual dictionaries for the PT), the senators represent entire sectors not just planets. That being the case, the senate can certainly accommodate all the member worlds.

 

plus unexplored space and worlds with life that are unknown or uncounted.

 

The size of the galaxy shouldn't be the determining factor over story telling. Yes, galaxies are big. But just because they are big and it's hard to stop every part of the Empire doesn't mean it should continue a the expense of good story telling. That would be silly. It would never end and you'd never accomplish anything.

Plus, one could easily say that if the galaxy is so big and vast, there could be many many other rebellions against other parts of the Empire that we don't know about as well.

Keeping the Empire around just because the galaxy is big or just for the sake of it is pointless. There needs to be a finite end to it all eventually....one that is believable and culminating. If all you do is have battle after battle after battle simply because the galaxy is so big, you lose any sense of what SW is good at-inner personal struggle between light and dark.

 

Yes the galaxy is huge, and we were shown 3 worlds in RotJ celebrating at the end, in GL's edited version. I think if my memory serves me right, Naboo, Tatooine and Coruscant, meaning from the core-worlds to the outer rim they were celebrating the destruction of the death star and the emperor.

Alone this strongly indicates the overthrowning of the dictatorship, whatever military units left, were still owing their loyalty to the people of the former republic.

 

Why assume it's bad storytelling to include the Imperials in the ST?

Wait and see.

In addition, just because we are familiar with something doesn't mean you can't have new stories about it. Think of genre. For example, mystery. How many mystery or detective stories have been told? Countless. Yet there's still a great demand for this kind of story, even when it's predictable.

Star Wars has similar elements that people want to see again, simply because we like them. Like a good detective story, that goodness has little do with whether or not newness is involved, but whether the story is told well. Sometimes newness can be what makes a story good, but sometimes it's not.

Personally, I want to see the Jedi and Sith again because there's more I want to learn about them. But I also just want to see them again, for their general qualities. Others like the Imperials in this way.

Does the story demand more Imperials? Who knows; we haven't read the story yet. As people have shown in this forum over and over, it's very probable that an interesting story can be made that demands the presence of Imperials.

But if some people aren't excited about Imperials, that's fine. But please stop telling us the story is bad. This is only speculation on your part. There aren't any rules of storytelling that say Imperials are bad in the ST.

 

I think there are a few basic points. None are wrong until we know the story.

(1) Those who want the Empire back see the galaxy as being too big and the Empire too big for it to have suddenly been wiped out.
(2) Those who do not see the Empire coming back see the finale in ROTJ as being complete as per the celebrations and the destruction of 2 death stars. They see it as being redundant for bring back the same group time and time again.
(3) Those who see an Imperial Remnant see the aftermath of the Empire, possibly into fractured worlds with glimmers of Imperial sentiments but possibly as a changed mindset.

All of these have historical contexts. All of them make some logical sense. All of them could direct the story toward its hopeful end result (New Republic and New Jedi Order).

That's what I gather from this and the poll thread.

 

Other... neutral Imperial Remnant, that eventually allies with the heroes

 

DON'T MINIMIZE THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF OUR HEROES IN THE ORIGINALS

The Rebels won...I'm hoping the plot doesn't minimize those accomplishments by saying that the Empire was strong in other parts of the Universe so was never defeated, that Emperor Palpatine survived, that Vader was cloned, etc. ​

 

Your text, on the other hand, should be minimized.

 

The big thing though is... it doesn't make sense for the Empire to have died right then and there at Endor. Yeah they lost quite a bit there and it's probably set the stage for the Empire's ruination, but the Empire certainly didn't die. It's not a Galactic Empire for nothing.

Still, if the Empire hasn't died out completely after 30 something years, then it's falling apart at the seams.

 

Hopefully there will be a new iteration of the 'Empire'. Not sure how to vote on that.

 

I still have a tidbit of hope of seeing Thrawn, even though he isn't canon.
I want the movie to start at the 2nd Deathstar spacebattle, he exits hyperspace with his fleet, sees the Empire is losing and the Deathstar is destroyed.
He gets a message: "your time will come admiral, set these coordinates...".

 

Tarkin, out next north and 100% CANON, explains very well and in great detail how the Empire was structured and how a full Empire can exist at the time of Episode VII.

It was purposely structured so that Palpatine could go off and do his Dark Side stuff, and just in case he got tossed into a Death Star reactor, the Empire would still go on without him at full power.

 

forgive me, I copied a thread, and the system not just copied the text but the size and avatar too

 

it makes sense because it is a fantasy movie.
How about destroying a battle station the size of a moon with just a single proton torpedo? crazy too, right? maybe they should made that the torpedo did nothing, you know, because of realism

 

A fantasy movie doesn't have to follow real-life logic, but it does have to follow its own logic. The proton torpedo hit a planet-destroying reactor, causing the reactor to blow up and take the surrounding matter down with it.

 

Have you already read it, manabyte? If so, tell us more.

The Tarkin book, as well as Rebels, are perfect opportunities to explain more about the Empire.