ST What do you think of the concept of the First Order?

I like the design of the FO military and a lot of aspects of the backstory for them. But way too similar to the Empire. Mixed feelings for me.

 

I like imperial factions, but there was no world-building to explain their appearance after Endor/the death of the Emperor. And giving the FO a planet-sized superweapon was a terrible choice which makes the Republic look like utter morons.

 

The idea of some form of imperial remnant returning after licking it’s post-Endor wounds for a few decades is sound. What I dislike is the First Order’s failure to learn from the Empire’s mistakes.

Why did they build their giant super weapon with a weak point that could be exploited by fighters? That should have been a pretty obvious lesson.

The military hardware, in general, was far too similar. We saw modified TIEs, AT-ATs and Star Destroyers. I would have liked to see more creativity there.

The First Order seemed too well established. They were supposed to be a rising threat, ignored by the republic. Instead, they are a galaxy-spanning army with an insane super weapon.

The leadership of the New Republic bore the scars of the war with the Empire. Yet, we’re supposed to accept that they also learned nothing from years of savage warfare. Instead of recognising the danger posed by the First Order and taking them on earlier, they just sat back and let them amass a military presence large enough to take over the galaxy and wipe out entire planets.

 

I guess somewhere down the line is an interesting story about the New Republic's 'policy of appeasement' towards the Imperial remnants, and the danger of remunerations after galactic conflict, which fuels nationalism, which results in the re-emergence of fascism etc. etc. But where I was so interested/invested in what led to the socio-political galaxy of the the OT e.g. the demise of the Republic/Jedi Order, and the origin of Darth Vader/the Emperor, I have so little interest in the ST that I can't say I'd be interested in an ST prequel telling that particular story. It's a shame really, because in an alternative universe, it could have made for a compelling story...

 

I agree. There’s three decades worth of stories between RotJ and TFA, but the formation of the First Order isn’t one that I’m particularly interested in hearing.

The fall of the Republic/Jedi Order and rise of the Empire/Sith is a compelling and tragic story. The creation of the First Order under the watchful eye of Palpatine’s clone-puppet-type-thing sounds considerably less compelling.

 

In an alternate universe the FO is a brutal guerilla force and Starkiller base gets destroyed by orbital bombardment from Republic Star Destroyers. The tragedy is that even without the Sith, the dark side is alive and nourished through all the carnage, and the New Republic has regressed from beacon of freedom to war profiteers.

 

In fairness, the only way the fighters got into said weak spot was due to betrayal on the inside and subsequent sabotage. That was bought about by Han's ludicrously precise flying. Otherwise, it would've shrugged everything off.

 

The sabotage itself was incredibly easy considering that this vital weak point of a planetary weapon didn't even have a garrison on it. Which kind of seems like a no-brainer.

 

I generally agree with the majority that the First Order was wasted in the ST, however I'm far more disappointed in the Final Order. I expected Palpatine's very own secret fleet, secluded on Exegol for a long time, to be far more twisted and evil looking. Not just the First Order again with a red paint job and Death Star wielding Star Destroyers. Darth Sidious being in essence a dark side black hole, the very metal of the Star Destroyers and the armor of the stormtroopers should have been twisted into abominations IMO.

 

Yep - huge issue there. The First Orders rise was one of the main points I thoought could have been covered in a bridge film between ROTJ & TFA. Too much happens off screen between the two films. Much like Rogue One beautifully leads us into A New Hope, something similar could have helped a lot between Ep6 and Ep7. I would like to see how the First Order came to be. Were there rebels that defected due to being disgruntled with perhaps complacency or power struggles within the resistance? Did Palps have a say in it? How did the force play into it, if at all? The very generic "here we go again, another empire batch of bad guys with very technical prowess is chasing own the rebels yet again" just gets boring. There is no "backstory" or anything interesting about the FO at all. Its just an off-the-shelf group of bad guys. Yawn.

Most/Many other villains/bad guy groups in the SW universe where there is some interest, some conflict, a story to tell, etc.

 

It's fine, but it ends up feeding into the weakest overall aspect of the sequel trilogy: the galactic conflict does not feel as impactful as the Clone Wars or the Galactic Civil War.

 

I like it.

 

I liked how TROS saved this questionable bunch of antagonists following what TLJ's quote by Snoke regarding the “useful tool“ Hux suggested already. They were needed to destabilize the galaxy, a bit like the droids in the prequels. This time they were young, fanatic, explosive empire fanboys even guided by a “puppet“; much likely supposed to be replaced by the Final Order when their “mission“ was over.

So, I don't think they are cool or something but the concept makes sense to me. Bad, old Palpatine pulling the strings.

 

Great point here. I just finished the sequel trilogy. As for the many questions about how the FO came to be yet again, I also had to ask: What are the resistance and FO fighting over again? Where is everyone else? What do they think about all of this? Are there precious resources that the FO controls that the resistance and other people can’t get at? What’s the point? I get the whole classic "good vs evil" angle but it just feels empty as far as a real conflict is concerned. Thats what happens when there isn’t enough world building and the sequels lack that big time.

Compare that to the prequels where despite some folks being bored with the politics, it sets things up beautifully and giving viewers something to sink their teeth into. It generates a great backdrop for a conflict. It makes the fighting matter, aka clone wars and execute order 66. The FO ends up so generic that it feels bleh. As I read a few posts above, it would have been genius to make the FO a guerilla group that used the "death by a thousand cuts" method versus the big bad empire that never learned and never could get it done. Have the resistance be the "big" group and the FO be a small "terrorist" organization led by Kylo and the Knights. Something like that. Instead, we got the utterly boring FO where every bad guy box is checked. It was lame.

 

Yeah. And why was the resistance so small if the FO was such a threat? Did the rest of the galaxy just shrug their shoulders and say screw it? Was the FO that bad? Why during the alleged rise of the FO was there not some pushback from the republic or surrounding systems? They just let them do this again? That’s hard to swallow. It just doesn’t jive. It proves that the sequels lack world building. There just isn’t any. Far too much happened off screen and way too many liberties need to be taken by the viewers.

Instead of pissing away previous screen time on garbage like canto bight they could have worked in some scenes that actually mattered to help tie up some things. Oh well. This is the result of a rushed, not properly planned out or thought out trilogy. It is what it is. The sequels are barely canon for me.

 

To me, It just seems repetitive to just bring back the Empire and call it something different. I also have no idea what to do for villains post ROTJ, so I don’t really what else they were supposed to do.

 

They could have had Kylo and his knights be the main baddies. Or as we have discussed, some small band of empire sympathizers that performed small hits against the resistance but staying mostly hidden. I like the idea that this time it was the empire or FO that was small and the resistance was the larger group. Would have been a nice spin on it. We are used to every movie ever where the bad guys always have 10x the numbers of the good guys but never or rarely get it done. Having the enemy be small and stealthy would have been unique and interesting. Maybe even have Kylo recruit some disgruntled resistance fighters. Stuff like that.

 

Yeah, that at least does sound better.

 

I think Imperial remnants/sympathizers as a general concept were a good inclusion but I think the way they went about implementing the First Order in execution was a major disappointment that retroactively harms a lot of the otherwise interesting timeline between ROTJ and the start of the ST, because of the positions all the characters now have to move into by then.

 

If we take 'real world' scenarios, when regimes fall, the vacuum is filled by other entities vying for power. So from my perspective, the sequels were always going to feature another technologically advanced organisation/force that were positioned as the antagonists. That they basically used imperials as this 'organisation' is, as you say, repetitive and entirely derivative in my humble opinion. For me, at the time the sequels were being developed, the natural progression would have either been the Mandalorians (which would have come with a wealth of established iconography) and/or an army of dark side users e.g. the Nightsisters or similar.

 

Yep - there were other opportunities here that got ignored. Too much lather, rinse, repeat. It was clear that whatever the Empire/FO/whatever was doing wasnt working. So, you change your plan or approach when the first several attempts all sort of failed. Like a good halftime adjustment by an NFL coach.

The Mandalorians? Interesting idea. A army of dark side users also sounds good. That plays into my idea of a stealth or a guerilla style enemy being not only unique but also could have lent itself to some new, cool characters and perhaps even a "sympathy" angle that could have been played regarding this new band of bad guys. Like the prequels with the whole "heroes on both sides" quote or the idea that "good" and "bad" depends on ones point of view. As ObiWan says. Instead we get the coikie-cutter, zero-questions-about-it good guys and bad guys. Rather played out and dull.

 

First order... order 66...final order.. quite like it.. no issues with it

 

Had they not destroyed the Republic, I think we could have had something interesting.

You could have had a Republic being ran by a Chancellor who was voted in by Imperial sympathizers (after a Civil War the bad guys don't just disappear) vs the officially gone off-the-rails Imperial Remnant with the Resistance (the Rebel force within Imperial territory) fighting against the Imperial Remnant while also not officially getting support from the Republic (but still getting aide from Leia). You have the Remnant find out that Leia is supporting the Resistance and suddenly the Remnant has an ""excuse"" to attack the Republic. Could have lead to a Resistance vs Empire vs Republic war where no one will ally with anyone else. You still get to use all your classic STAR WARS iconography while still providing something new to the audience.

And to add to it, the Republic could still be under the mindset that the Jedi were a sect of traitors that tried to kill the last Supreme Chancellor of the old Republic during a coup. A lot could have been done in the ST., but instead we just go the OT with a new paintjob.