Discussion Who's the Baddie?

I'd like to see a female main baddie this time around.

 

I always felt that a Ventress-like villain would work.

 

I'm open to this, but whenever I read this sort of critique, I feel fearful that the next baddie will be a reaction to the previous baddies rather than an entirely new character. I really don't like what happens when new characters are created as a direct reaction to previous characters. It almost always results in plot rife with contrivances. That's no fun.

Totally.

Of course! What could go wrong?

Interesting. How would you imagine this manifesting? Would these demons be humanoid or take a different form? Why another dimension rather than another star system or atypical expanse of space time? How would you imagine that the existence of additional dimensions intersect with the world between worlds?

 

I would see them as like an evil version of The Whills.

Also as opposed to Light side vs dark side, I want to see society vs force users.

Or an examination of how Force users are looked upon in the Galaxy Far Far Away.

The OT and now the ST showed them almost extinct and a myth.

The PT had them co-working with the central government. Until Order 66 made the survivors fugitives.


I want to see how society sees Jedi or force users, when they know they’re not myths. Or depended upon like a policing force by the governing people.


I’d have the “demon type Whills” be in the background while all this is going on.

 

Interesting take. I have not ever imagined the Whills to be good or bad, but, like the Force, just are. Mortal considerations such as "good" or "bad" don't seem to be consistent with omniscience. That isn't to say that something (action / inaction) which a human or Torgruta may consider "bad" cannot be committed by the Whills, just the perception that an event, occurrence or decision is "good" or "bad" is entirely based on the emotional attachment of mortals. I'm not opposed to your take as much as I would hope there would be - at the very least - specific distinguishing characteristics which allow the Whills to exist in a state truly and completely outside of mortal typicality.

While the Force and the Whills seem like, perhaps, a myth, I think that the need to seek knowledge in order to gain understanding is fundamental to growth. Is it possible that that Whills and the Force are always present, but the occupants of TGFFA are simply unable to perceive their/its presence without seeking out the knowledge of how to commune/interact? I hesitate to define any of this at all because its very easy to get off on the wrong track, but I hope that whatever is done with the Whills moving forward, is done with a great amount of care and attention to detail.

Would you mind elaborating on this idea of "society vs Force users"? In what way is this different than Sidious playing CIS and the Republic against each other and what is it about this sort of a scenario that is compelling?

 

Whoever the baddies are, I think it's important that they and the threat they represent are timely in some way. Taking examples from all three trilogies, the Empire represented the threat that both American and Societ imperialism represented to the world, right down to a planet-destroying superweapon (nukes) being central to the plots of 2/3 of the films. Within the PT, you have the threat represented by corrupt politicians (Palpatine, most of the senate) and corporations who have a seat at the political table (Trade Federation, Banking Clan, etc.) and how easily democratic norms can be appropriated to create fascistic regimes while the people applaud, as well as how wars can be created that serve no true purpose other than to destabilize checks-and-balances and centralize executive powers. The ST... well, let's just say that General Hux seems less like an unrealistic cartoon in the years since TFA was released. Today, he'd fit right in on the evening news.

Obviously, there's a fine line between speaking to the times and bashing the audience over the head with parallels, but this approach has always been central to Star Wars, and indeed is a hallmark of good storytelling and villain creation, period. That has to be kept in mind when building out the next era the franchise will explore, or else we'll just end up with Generic Bad Guys Who Look Cool.

 

Take broom not for example. If he’s open about his power, New his friends accept him? So they envy him.

Does the fathier owner, exploit his powers? Does he pull broom boy away from the other dumpy children and treat him better/ spoil him, knowing he has the force.


Or say two pilots competing for the same position in the new Republic. One has the force, and uses his powers to come out on top. Is the other pilot jealous? Does he start hating force sensitive people?

Do force sensitives themselves start exploiting people with Jedi mind tricks for personal use? Do normal people see this as a threat?


At the end of the PT, Sidious used deception to turn the public on the Jedi.

But what about a trilogy or movie where we how to see Force sensitives and normal people co-exist.


Or other religions who are no difference between Jedi or Sith?

We don’t have to keep going back to space Nazi type villains.

 

The baddie is a time lord, one who has been to WBW and has somehow control of time and space like Palpatine wanted.

 

I'd say that there is still plenty of things the villains in the ST represent. Most importantly the ideas that winning a huge war doesn't mean everyone lives happily ever after, that enemy powers can rise again in similar or more radical fashion (playing on the German Empire to Nazi Germany angle), that being more powerful at the end of the first war doesn't mean the enemy won't find a way to curbstomp you in a surprising fashion just a few decades later, and not to mention the act of appeasement due to people generally being tired of conflict (even if it deviates from the historical example for appeasement).

 

To collect some of my current favorite ideas:



Post-TROS Trilogy:
A combination of the following 3, all together in one trilogy, where the resolution is not a war but diplomacy leading to a treaty, by heroes on every side and no side, which is then put to the test and upheld (despite the desires of greedy war-profiteers and their megacorporations) to show they learned the lessons of the previous 3 trilogies. A galaxy where the droids have already been (peacefully) liberated and given equal rights too. Leading us back to a galaxy at peace, as it was pre-TPM, but evolved and even better, a galaxy that won't repeat the past.
The three factions:

1. Flawed, centralized, detached, bureaucratic Jedi following the orders of a flawed, apathetic, systematic Republic serving as the gray antagonists. Trying to balance between being too centralized and militarized like Palpatine's Republic and too weak and demilitarized like it was in Bloodline/TFA. Hopefully kept its post-Endor reforms (rotating capital, democratically-elected Senators instead of appointments, each system having representation, not forcing worlds to join, allowing worlds to peacefully secede) and some new ones (against corruption, keeping the underworld in check, keeping military-arms corporations in check, making the Senate even more democratic/representative, eliminating titles of nobility even in system governments and insisting member systems be democratic, perhaps a triumvirate executive or a president elected directly by the people in place of a chancellor with IK-style safeguards) but in need of additional reforms too.
2. A sympathetic authoritarian government that's not as plain evil as Palpatine/Snoke/Tarkin/etc., to have a conflict that shows why authoritarian government even when not cackling evil is still bad. Perhaps similar to the Fel Empire with its light-side dynasty, Imperial Knights, Imperial Missionaries, and Victory Without War program, and its mostly-benevolent dictator having Rey's power to heal others, but able to tap into the cosmic Force for it instead of their own life-force, so it's unlimited and they're seen as a God-King of Utopia miracle-worker. Perhaps a former apprentice of Rey's.
3. A sympathetic liberator/freedom-fighter antagonist who focuses on the ends justifying the means, no matter how bloody, wanting a revolution. Think of a mix of the Red Lotus in Legend of Korra with Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones. Or perhaps more similar to what the Separatists' Confederacy of Independent Systems would have looked like without Sith or megacorporation influence. ​

Jedi Diversity
Jedi/light-siders (in the future and in past time periods) that deviate from the norm by having some Jedi who are just wandering do-gooders, while other Jedi belong to several different organizations (some affiliated with one government, some another government, and some still a central bureaucracy but unafilliated with any government, and each of those branches also having branches that allow family/marriage/children/health-attachment and those that still don't), and seeing more Jedi who welcome and teach non-sensitives their culture and ways, and also sensitive and non-sensitive Jedi who walk other paths beyond warrior/diplomat/monk.
So at the same time you can have:

1. centralized bureaucratic Jedi affiliated with a Republic who don't allow family (the PT Jedi)
2. centralized bureaucratic Jedi affiliated with a light-side Jedi Empire who don't allow family
3. centralized bureaucratic Jedi affiliated with a light-side Confederacy/Separatist-movement who don't allow family
4. centralized bureaucratic Jedi affiliated with a Republic who allow family
5. centralized bureaucratic Jedi affiliated with a light-side Jedi Empire who allow family
6. centralized bureaucratic Jedi affiliated with a light-side Confederacy/Separatist-movement who allow family
7. centralized, bureaucratic Jedi not affiliated with any government who don't allow family - perhaps multiple

7a. one helps refugees and delivers food/medical supplies in a war
7b. another eliminated the war criminals and dictators on both sides in a war
7c. another is completely neutral and pacifist in any war​

8. centralized, bureaucratic Jedi not affiliated with any government who allow family - perhaps multiple

8a. one helps refugees and delivers food/medical supplies in a war
8b. another eliminated the war criminals and dictators on both sides in a war
8c. another is completely neutral and pacifist in any war​

9. uncentralized, non-bureaucratic, wandering do-gooder Jedi (all individuals, some affiliated with a government, some aren't)​

*all allow non-sensitives to also join and embrace their culture and ways
*all allow non-warrior/monk/diplomat paths such as healers, teachers, librarians, engineers, scientists, archaeologists, etc.

​

A Republic/Sith/Jedi origin story:

Perhaps in the past, what the galaxy looked liked before the Republic. Each Sith Lord having his/her own Jedi Knights to rule over their mini-kingdom, with the Sith Lords constantly at war with one another to expand power. Until the Jedi Knights discover the Force isn't only a tool but has its own will, and decide to side with the oppressed peoples of all the feudal kingdoms, go "order 66" against their Sith Lords, and help form the first Galactic Republic. With some Sith Lords not necessarily being dark, and their descendants being the leftover nobility ("Elder Houses") we see in the Saga, where titles like Princess of Alderaan and Count Dooku originate from, the old Pre-Republic feudal system.​

"Heroes on Both Sides":
A true Separatist Hero (and their story) in the lead-up to and during the Clone Wars, not affiliated with the war crimes or deceptions of Dooku and Grievous and the megacorporations, in a sector of the galaxy and the war that doesn't see our usual Republic heroes.

 

This is an intriguing idea, but I don't think it's ever likely to happen just due to the fact that Disney/Lucasfilm will always want there to be conflict. Star Wars films are blockbusters, and even if your hypothetical trilogy had plenty of fight scenes, I don't think they would go in a direction that would hinder them in making action-oriented sequels.

If anything, this is where the Sequel Trilogy should have ended up, with a more lasting peace, rather than just rehashing RotJ's ending.

I'm not sure that I would want to see the origins of the Jedi or the Republic on film - I like these things being left to the imagination. But if they were to do it, this would be a really interesting take. The only thing I'm trying to wrap my head around is how this fits in with Obi-Wan's "for over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic".

 

Oh there will always be conflict, I was just thinking of the next saga trilogy actually ending with a peace treaty between reasonable sides where no one is evil, just different, would be returning the GFFA to its best. They can then do movies at least a century in the future, or further in the past, or stories not about galactic war like Solo, etc.

As for the origin idea question, Obi-wan’s quote can still be true. Whether that Origin idea is pushed to 25,000 years ago, or he was just speaking figuratively and justifying it with shorter lifespans of some species or something. Either would be easy to make work.

 

It wouldn't surprise me that they come up with a way of having Palpatine being the orchestrator behind the bad guys, he seems to be the go to/default bad guy when everything else fails.

 

Based on what exactly?
They made him come back once to act in such a role once. That hardly makes him the go to guy for anything.

There is zero reason to assume that they would even think about bringing him back in any capacity again, much less right away.

 

Was he supposed to be the main villain in Rebels? By the final season he became the key villain, overtaking both Thrawn and Maul.

 

I would say Palpatine is only a major villain in three of the final episodes (A World Between Worlds and the final two-parter), and even then only for Ezra, not the whole cast. Thrawn is the big bad for seasons 3 and 4, with Maul as more of a wild card who pops up every so often to disrupt things.

 

I agree with Oissan here, using Palpatine in ROS didn't bring in masses of cinema goers, so reusing him won't be on LFL's priority list.

Seems more likely that they would try to create a Star Wars version of another popular pop culture villain. Maybe like Thanos, some dude who just wants to wipe out all life for some twisted reason?

 

What they need is another take on the baddie that isn't so trite. That is, someone who doesn't want to end humanity or rule the galaxy (yawn). Different kind of more localized story where the baddie has different motivations would be interesting. No more resurrected bad guys, no more redeemed bad guys.

 

Prince Xisor and Black Sun seemed perfect to be taken from page to screen, it was probably right he wasn't in Solo as he isn't as disposable as Dryden Vos.

 

It will be something truly lame this is RJ we are talking about here.

 

I would hope so.But I have little to no faith in RJ.

 

I'm still hanging on to the Yuuzhan Vong concept. Maybe not exactly them, but some sort of extra-galactic, force resistant brutal enemy race that devastates much of the galaxy, causing the governments of the different planets, the (presumed) new republic and the Jedi order to join together to defeat them.

 

The more thought I give it, the more I want to see villains with interesting personalities and unique motivations, rather than an arms race to get the Most Powerful Force User Ever (TM). Now that we're out of the Skywalker Saga, there's no need for villains who threaten the entire galaxy. The threat can be scaled down to tell a more intimate story.

Like, take the novel and film Misery. Annie Wilkes is a fantastic villain, really scary, and she's just an average-sized middle-aged woman who's a bit too into her fandom. It's the story and the insight into her psychology that make her effective. Or Psycho - that film terrified me of showers for years, and who's the villain? A guy in a dress with a kitchen knife. I hear fans gush over Vader's "badass" scenes in Disney canon, but he never needed any of that to be scary for me. It was his look, his demeanour and his choices that were scary, not whether he could take out 100 guys in a cage fight.

 

Set 100 years after TROS, Palpatine returns in a clone of Rey. He infiltrates the New Jedi Order, they believe in some prophecy where their creator returns reincarnate. They turn evil, dark side wielders, they attack the Newest Galactic Republic; however, they didn't count on the amazing Republic Commandos, who are now well trained against Force users, to defeat them. No longer having Jedi or Sith. The end.