ST What will the Antagonists be fighting for? (Poll included) v2

Version 2 of this thread: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...-they-be-fighting-for-poll-included.50017327/


Putting aside the debate over the exact identity of the Main Villain... what about their ideology?

What will the main antagonists be fighting for?





I can see five possibilities...

The Destroyers... they want to kill as much life as they can, destroy as many worlds as they can... not even any interest in conquering or ruling, they just want the galaxy to burn, enjoy the chaos, kill all life, and destroy the Force itself

The Gray Empire... "Jedi" and non-Jedi-military who serve a new Emperor who has NOT fallen to the dark side (basically a Jedi Empire... the Old Republic minus the Senate)... perhaps they even view the offspring and descendants of the Chosen One as some sort of "divine bloodline" with the right to rule the galaxy

The Liberator... an idealistic movement that wishes to liberate the galaxy and create something completely new, because the New Republic and New Jedi have the same flaws as the old ones, slavery still exists and droids are still treated as property, and the Liberator feels that Luke/Han/Leia have failed to fully take advantage of the Empire's fall... the Liberator is Force-trained but not Jedi or Sith and not a dark-sider, but she has no hesitation in bringing swift and bloody justice to those she has perceived to be benefitting from all the inequality and exploitation that still exists in the galaxy

The Philosopher-King of Utopia... an enlightened, seemingly-benevolent Sith Lord (or something similar) wants to rule the galaxy because only he/she can truly give them the best existence possible, even be able to give Eternal Life to the common people of the galaxy and Resurrect the dead back to life, to live in a galaxy of Peace and Plenty, a utopian paradise... you just need to accept this person as the enlightened philosopher god-king of the galaxy

The old-fashioned villains motivated by revenge and totalitarian order... self-explanatory.



Or perhaps some combination of the above Or maybe we'll have more than one group of antagonists too. (For those reasons, I'll make this a multiple-choice poll).



What do you think?

 

1 and 5 are too cliche for my liking. 1 would be The Joker in all but name and 5 would be Palpatine in all but name. I love 2, 3, and 4. I could see Plagueis as 4.

 

I could see Lupita Nyongo playing "the Liberator." The perfect contrast to Palpatine as "the Emperor," and she might even get some of the audience and some of the heroes to support her.

I can also see Gwendoline Christie and Oscar Isaac being members of the Gray Empire.

Max von Sydow could be an elder statesman in the Gray Empire too, if he's playing himself. If he's doing the voiceover for a CGI character, he's probably the Philosopher-King of Utopia.

Adam Driver looks like he could play a Destroyer, or another traditional revenge/order villain.

 

I'm thinking someone's gonna kill Han, and Adam Driver (his son) is gonna go sithy trying to get revenge. I like the idea of a more complex villain no matter what the motivation, though. I know a lot of people like to say that Star Wars represents a more classical good vs. evil story, but I think that went out the door with ESB.

 

I guess I'd say something between Liberator and old fashioned villain. I can envision someone(s) wanting to gain complete and utter control over the Force and thus life itself, desiring to be somewhat of a God of sorts. They want to manipulate life, create immortality, but do so by creating "phases" of that control...(1) Prevent others from dying (2) bring back those who have died and (3) create a massive weapon of the Force to prevent anyone from getting in their way

 

The Empire will be the antagonists. They didnt just evaporate when the Emperor died. What the special editions didnt show were the stormtroopers that moved in 5 minutes later and put a stop to all those celebrations. Many gungans died just off camera.

 

The Gray Empire is basically the imperial/military aspect of Palpatine's empire... without Palpatine's obvious drawbacks.
The Philosopher King is basically the Sith/Force aspect of Palpatine's character... again, without his obvious drawbacks.

Both of those antagonist scenarios would allow us to explore a thought-provoking theme in the ST... is it morally ok to hand over power to dictators, as long as they're not that bad? Even though it was hinted at (like Anakin's conversation with Padme about "someone wise"), it could never be seriously explored because Palpatine and his Empire were too blatantly evil. Killing farmers, blowing up planets, killing their own subordinates, torturing, imprisoning, murdering children, climbing to power out of mass deception and violence, etc. If you took away the obvious evils... would it be ok to hand over power to dictators who act benevolent?


The Liberator is basically a more violent and radical version of the Rebellion. They don't want to restore a flawed Republic and a flawed Jedi order, they want something completely new, that will really work for the people this time. Something that will free the slaves, empower the oppressed, uplift the poor. And bring swift, bloody "justice" to all those who preserve or benefit from the current flawed system. This would also be thought-provoking, and something new. If it was ok for Luke to kill millions on the Death Star, is it ok for the Liberator to kill the former slave-owners after freeing their slaves, and execute the politicians who ignore the long suffering of the galaxy's poor? If the Rebellion was justified to violently rebel against the Empire, isn't it justified for the Liberation movement to violently rebel against a restored, flawed Republic? Where is the line?


The traditional villains would be for anyone who doesn't want anything new or thought-provoking, and just wants to see authoritarian powers be blatantly evil and corrupt again.


The Destroyers would be for anyone who only wants the obvious evil, and thought Palpatine and his empire were too subtle in their evil. They could perhaps be a little thought-provoking if they were despairing people who thought only destruction and death could bring peace to the galaxy. They could also be useful as a side-villain, to contrast against a more gray antagonist like the Gray Empire or Philosopher King or the Liberator.

 

Leftover Imperials and its supporters.

Darth Plagueis

Perhaps some new threat.

 

You seem to misunderstand the topic. This isn't about speculating who the antagonist is... it's what their motivation is (no matter what their identity is, or if they're new or old).

 

Their motivation is to finally put an end to this rebellion.

 

Hehh, this is why Dissidia Final Fantasy is so nice. Put all the big bads with totally different goals and motivations into one group and see how they try to get them. The idealists all become pawns pretty quickly.

 

i can't like this enough.

 

I vote that they will at first appear to be 'The Destroyer' (tear everything down) but that someone behind the scenes is using this threat to try and get all the disparate powers to finally unite into a New Republic (akin to a Liberator of sorts). Maybe we'll learn that the Old Republic and the Jedi Order was first founded a thousand generations ago to oppose some great enemy that was too powerful for any lone regional power to overcome and this villain has decided that the only way to restore the Republic after the collapse of the Empire is for someone to be the bad guy and they've chosen to martyr themselves by becoming that villain.

 

Antagonist Jedi can have their own motivations
Antagonist military could just be conquerors

I feel like in an effort to avoid cliches, new cliches which are far less compelling have been established. In the end it's all McGuffin anyways. Putting too much thought into the McGuffin defeats its purpose.

 

How about less choices? They can always go old school Iraqi...

 

Any other ideas?

 

With the new rumors floating around, what do you think their ideology will be?

 

What are they fighting for? Lets see freedom of the galaxy, for each other, because it is what they are casted to do,

 

I don't think that the villains will be aligned this time entirely. It seems we're looking at the Empire and the Sith as two separate parties with entirely separate goals. The Empire wants to return to the heyday of the OT/ PT-OT periods, and the Sith just want to come back to life to return to the power/destruction obsession they've always had.

 

That would be awesome. Like a three way war with Imperials vs. Sith vs. The Rebellion/New Republic.
I do hope we get to see a lot more of the Sith!

 

Pizza

 

So, do we now all think Snoke, Kylo Ren, the First Order, etc., are motivated by order and revenge?

 

I think they want power and control over the galaxy.