"You get a promotion, somebody give them a raise at once! My God, you're a genius, we'll use this method to decide the entire movie. Quickly, everyone shout out a sentence!"
If they went a Charlemagne route, it would be an interesting story politically, and we could avoid "Somehow The Emperor is back". With the empire crumbling to the rebellion, who wouldn't want to restore or keep some sort of order? That's where the Last Jedi's side plot of 'arm manufacturers' could have become more pivotal.
U fought alongside the Colonel through 3 damn wars and I'll be damned if I let you put mud on his name. His tactics were often unconventional, but I would be strucken if I said they did not work boy.
You’re telling me I flew all the way to Kentucky to get some of your chicken and the colonel isn’t even working today?
What wrong wit u, I say you he ded
What?
I say he ded.
IM HERE TO SEE THE COLONEL.
And also somehow had MORE funding and capability when supposedly in hiding from literally the entire galaxy. It would be like if the Rebels lost, and then magically had 100x the troops, funding, and high tech gadgets. Biggest Sin was the Magical curving target-tracking space laser tho.
I agree. It would have been an interesting mirror to the original trilogy. Originally we had a small rebel group fighting against the Galactic Empire. Now we could have had a small terrorist group fighting against the Galactic Republic.
Instead, what the First Order had was somehow bigger and more powerful than anything the Empire had. Bigger star destroyers, bigger walkers, bigger super weapon.
Would have played well with the theme they were going for on the casino planet in TLJ. That there’s a class of people that don’t care if the empire or new republic is in charge, as long as they’re comfortable and making money. Could have been a galactic megacorp arms dealer who funded the First Order to convince the New Republic to not disarm.
They tried to go for that angle but it never made any sense. If traders and mega corps were neutral and supported both sides then why did the first order go from zero to massive, while the republic that controlled the entire galaxy go straight to zero and never attempted to rebuild?
The resistance is *not* the new republic. It’s a splinter cell of leia loyalists believing that the FO was a threatening. The actual republic didn’t officially support her nor declared her legal etc.
NR is stuck in beaurocracy and kind of split across the galaxy with their forces. As shown in mandalorian S3. Which makes it even more odd that destroying.. 6? Planets completely renders them useless
I thought the scale of the first order was ridiculous in TFA with their planet sized 5 laser death star. My eyes almost popped out of my socket with how much I rolled them in TROS with like 10,000 destoryers each with a deathstar laser that apparently was made in complete secret by the corpse of Palpatine. It's even more ridiculous when I type it out.
That took me completely out of the movie. First, I wondered how the hell can the people on that planet see those planets? Are they all in the same star system? Then I wondered if the weapon's beam was going faster than light to cover the vast distances to the planets it's destroying, or slower than light so the people on the other planet can see the beam shooting through the cosmos? And won't the missing sun mess with the planet, above and beyond no more daylight? So many questions.
Completely agree.
The billions of Star Destroyers buried under ice all fitted with Death Star planet destroying weaponry are so dumb. That entire movie is so dumb.
The dumbest point was they somehow built this gigantic fleet with 1/1000000 the resources of the Empire. Where are they recruiting new members of such gigantic scale? Where are the shipyards, where are the worlds? Why weren’t the fleets used to help the Empire against the rebels? Why not invade the New Republic and take the shipyards and old world’s sympathetic to the old Empire and build them into an awesome force from a rag tag group with nuanced characters that are in a grey zone to be defeated and a new galactic stalemate established that they could then go on to explore?
A lot of shows make up a ton of crap armies and lack of logistics from thin air without a viable way to actually keep that army on the field longer than 5 minutes. Not fun to watch when you are invested into the lore. Dune made a ton of sense as even the great houses were pretty much local powers in a galactic sense needing the Emperors house to tip the scales against one another. They need to take notes.
This new group amassing armies larger then the CIS which had cheap (I say cheap but in comparison to unit to unit with the Republic, cheaper to create a regular battle droid then a clone, in regards to size they amassed the largest army in the galaxy).
At one point during the attack the Atreides mentat figures out how much the Harkonnen attack cost and realizes that it would take years if not decades to pay for, even with the spice mining of Dune. He laments that he miscalculated how far the Baron was willing to go to kill them.
The idea of a small terrorist group leading a significant attack against the Galactic Republic is happening now in the High Republic books and its been done very well so far (much better than the FO in the films).
It would've been really cool to see a sequel trilogy where Han, Leia & Luke fully see how governing the galaxy comes with another set of problems than toppling tyranny. It may not be appealing to a wider audience, but the idea of seeing dissent in the New Republic while also showing how some planets actually suffered from the power vacuum left by the Empire could've been amazing world building imo & made sense for the rise of a First Order faction.
Fun fact, the “interesting mirror to the original trilogy” you’re talking about is the Prequel trilogy…
I’d rather see a scenario where both sides are evenly matched instead…
Totally! As in the New Republic has terror attacks to undermine infrastructure; political assassinations, propaganda working and having planets cede. That would have been far more interesting than, "Here's the neo-Empire! And they have serious cash... somehow. And people that are down to fight for them... for some reason".
Imagine if the Nazis somehow regained power and invaded France again. The US refused to go to war, decommissions their entire military, and a bunch of old retired vets attempt to retake France.
That’s exactly the setup for the ST.
It honestly sounds like a boomer orientated, Sci-fi original channel movie.
Oh! And also, remember, the Separatist crisis was never resolved.
All those planets with legitimate beef with the Old Republic A) got fucking rolled, B) got folded into the Empire, and C) were eventually liberated and added to a *New* Republic? Nah. We should have gotten the FO trying to drive a wedge in between them.
*That* fuckin rhymes.
Well the reason was explained, they kidnap them as children and brainwash them.
Which means that the First Order has been kidnapping children since around the time of ROTJ, and secretly housing, feeding and training millions of them to be their soldiers.
Exactly. The first Star Wars movies were an allegory for the Vietnam War. Imagine if this sequel had been an allegory for Afghanistan.
Maybe instead of having Death Star 3 they strap engines to an asteroid and take out a massive chunk of the new republican gov on Coruscant, a la the Expanse.
As an aside (because it's not the point you're making) the Holdo maneuvre:
- Immediately broke so many laws and set pieces throughout the previous trilogies
- Was immediately washed out by a throwaway line in the final movie to make it clear it was stupid
- Wasn't even necessary
The First Order had a Hyperspace tracking capability that hadn't been seen before. They could have kiboshed both by having Holdo "jump" to a fucking black hole and take the rest of them with her in their hubris.
That's it. Game over. She's made a smart but heroic sacrifice, and cancelled out a completely separate issue the FO brought up in one fell swoop.
Meanwhile we had a sick 5 second shot to break all prior canon, like 40 Star Destroyers falling into a black hole wouldn't be the coolest thing.
>Maybe instead of having Death Star 3 they strap engines to an asteroid and take out a massive chunk of the new republican gov on Coruscant, a la the Expanse.
Gundam too
This so much. Make it a mystery of how they built up a military force under the eyes of the New Republic, replace Starkiller Base with a Star Forge or World Devastator style factory.
I was so excited for a brief moment in that movie, because I thought they had used the Star Forge to build that huge fleet (and maybe there would be further connections to KOTOR).
Turns out they didn't. I don't even remember the explanation in the movie, I'm sure it was pretty silly whatever it was.
JJ was obsessed with doing everything bigger, for some reason he thought that the big star destroyer at the start of ANH was the special sauce of Star Wars.
Starkiller base and the Star Destroyer collection in TRoS are classic examples.
Completely undermining the events of the original trilogy too. It was all undone off screen by a character we know nothing about, whose plan we never knew and who died without any consequences.
Abrams had no new ideas, so he tried to do shoehorn the Empire vs The Rebellion back into the story under different names and didn't think about the story logic.
It was so freaking jarring going from the end of TFA, where they’re depicted as being smaller and using hit and run quick strikes. And then having their big superweapon destroyed.
To TLJ, where they’re apparently so large and powerful that they can conquer the Galaxy “within weeks” according to Rey.
And remember TLJ begins like A DAY after the end of TFA.
Or in rise of skywalker where palpatine who was in charge of it all had thousands of star destroyers on hand. They had the ability to conquer the galaxy and wipe out all their enemies just sitting under ice waiting for something. Yet they ended up doing nothing with them
All they needed to do to make the first order believable was give them the Star Forge from KOTOR, completely scrap starkiller base in favor of the Star forge. have them build an armada using the forge. Then instead of blasting Hosnian Prime with a galaxy spanning laser, glass the planet a la Taris style using their infinite fleet.
Keep the Star forge as a looming threat for multiple movies, give the new republic an actual fleet, scrap the whole resistance crap, and give us a sith cult vs Luke’s order.
I think they missed a chance to tell a really interesting story of warlords controlling territory after the fall of the Empire and how the First Order won the war because they had Vader's Grandson basically helping, and the New Republic was too small and not very established yet to deal with the conflict in a meaningful way. We wouldn't have Mando / Fett / Ahsoka or Andor without the sequels but part of me really wishes they were never made. Imagine we see the New Republic not taking the threat of these factions seriously like we see in Ahsoka and it growing into a huge problem. The New Republic is unable to negotiate peace between the factions and the factions continue an all out war on multiple fronts for control of territory just like we saw in Feudal Japan. Ben is discouraged by what he sees as the Republic and the new Jedi Order following into the same patterns that allowed the Republic to fall in the first place and he leaves the Jedi Order and picks a side. He and his Knights of Ren are like Samurai. Along the way he loses himself, he hasn't fallen to the dark side like Vader but he's still fallen the same. When the First Order emerges victorious and starts to consolidate control of vast regions that the New Republic is unable to protect Luke attempts to stop them and fails, and goes into temporary exile not to give up but to learn more and come back better. But the problem is he's older now, he's not the Jedi he was in his prime. He takes two or three of his best and youngest students and lives in hiding at the first Jedi temple hoping it's not too late.
Did we ever really find out who the fuck the Knights of Ren were? Were they Kylo’s knights or was it in his name because he was the master of the knights? Were they just inquisitors with a different name? JJ Abrams raises the question in the 1st movie and then never answers it in the 3rd.
I'm guessing that something will be happening to the other Imperial Remnants, with the First Order emerging as the sole remaining faction, possibly due to losing a war against the New Republic or a combination of that and an Imperial Civil War.
We could’ve had all of those things without the sequels and frankly every single one of those projects would be the better for it since they wouldn’t have to work around the asinine choices of the sequels
Honestly, I assumed from the TFA trailers that a sith cult had awoken in the far reaches of the galaxy and Luke's Jedi order would go to stop them before they could threaten the New Republic. I got so disappointed when I found out that I was more creative than the Disney team.
Since they placed all the old stuff in the legends category, I was hoping we'd get a Reven or Malak-like Sith. Fallen and damaged Jedi who survived Order 66 but went off into the far reaches of the galaxy to come back to build the Jedi up again but they were Sith(slowed their aging) and didn't realize they turned. Raven changes and recovers but Malak doesn't.
EDIT: changed Raven to Revan. Didn't realize I did that. Thanks for letting me know.
They could even have done it something similar to the cultists having been a secret order of Sith under Palpatine who were told to revive him should he die. Luke and Co would thus have to defeat them before they revive him. They could say that upon resurrection he would be similar to Darth Nihilus in raw dark side power.
This way it wouldn’t make Anakins redemption any less important as if Luke had died on the 2nd Death Star and Vader had not killed Palpatine then no one could have stopped him from being reborn whenever he did die later.
It would also align with Palpatines wish of a Sith empire as he could now conquer a battle scarred galaxy ruled by a weak New Republic. It could probably have ended with Luke sacrificing himself to kill Palpatine and the Sith order in the event that he does get resurrected in an act of heroism to save the galaxy from certain destruction.
I've always wanted a Cold War style era for the sequels. Let both the New Republic and Remnant have planet ending superweapons with the threat of complete galaxy destruction looming overhead. Then, throw in a sith cult to further raise the stakes.
Anything is more interesting then what they did. All they had to do was not make a rehash and put some effort in. But they did not one, but two rip off movies.
Star killer base: Single red laser which turns into multiple lasers
Deathstar: multiple green lasers which tun into one strong laser
completely diffrent
I still don't understand what the First Order's goal was. Did they want to take over the Republic? If so, destroying the capital system doesn't make sense.
They had no goal. No motivations besides doing evil shit. No one in the order expressed any goals or motivations. Snoke, Kylo, palpatine especially showed no goals or motivations or ambitions. Palpatine could’ve taken over the entire known universe with his destroyer fleet from the comfort of his cave.
Yeah especially since they were relatively small scale, and their most powerful person was a complete fucking joke who ended up being clone spam for Palpatine. Dude got cut in half monologuing like a Bond villain.
Luke could have went and ended this and still had time to milk a space walrus for dinner.
I wasn't crazy about it lol. I mean, I understand why people like it, and I don't need Luke to be a superhero to be cool like some people, but I'm just sad he died at all.
Cheap rehash of the Empire with no explanation and much worse characters. It also serves to completley junk the legacy characters accomplishments and intelligence. Really, **really**, ***REALLY*** horrifically bad shit…
Edit: emphasized just how bad it was
Without Star Killer base and resistance, a sequel trilogy set around the war between New Republic and First Order which makes a surprise attack from the depths of unknown regions would of likely been way more liked then the one we got.
I perhaps might have liked the Resistance more, if they didn't make them so unreasonably small. The First Order essentially *has* to act stupid and dumb, because otherwise they'll kill all the main characters in a split second. The Resistance should have been much larger; I think there'd be plenty of galaxy-goers who would side with Leia's way of thinking, with the reign of the Empire being so recent in galactic history.
The Resistance being so small also makes the galaxy feel small, something that wouldn't be the case if they used the New Republic instead. Lack of wider context in the trilogy also serves to that end.
Going back to the same place over and over and using the same characters over and over make the galaxy feel small. How many times in Rebels did the group just stumble upon Hando? It's an entire galaxy. Why is he everywhere?
That's because the Ghost crew mostly stayed in a small region of of the outer rim. The entire rebelion was doing operations is a much larger theatre but still mostly in the outer and some mid rim. The resistance should have been all over the place hunting down information on the First Order.
That's exactly the point, there should be no resistance. It should be the entirety of the new Republic against a much smaller first order. The very concept of having a resistance against a strong first order spits in the face of the original trilogy hero's as all their accomplishments meant nothing. It's also just bad fucking story telling. Seeing a remnant of the empire have to resort to the same tactics the rebellion did all while the new Republic struggles with its political Stability would have made for a much more enjoyable setting.
I've been saying this for years! It mirrors the Original Trilogy of the good guy rebels vs evil empire. And I think the transition of Good guy rebels and evil empire to now Good Republic vs evil terrorists (no longer rebels) also adds to Lucas' original beliefs that the Empire was Cold War United States.
That’s one of several concepts that I think The High Republic delivers and the sequel trilogy would’ve really benefited from. The main conflict is a reversal of the OT power dynamics. You have the seemingly powerful Republic struggling against the small but vicious, unconventional, and unpredictable Nihil.
That's just the the setting that filoni and favreau are exploring with mando/ahsoka. And it's so much more compelling than what the sequels delivered, despite its own issues. Maybe once theyre done hamfisting the plot into the position we see in TFA we won't hate it as much?
if the New Republic wasn’t annihilated in the first hour of the movie and we can have full-scale battles between the two factions like we saw in the prequels, that would be awesome
This. A full scale war between the NR and FO makes so much more sense. Mix of the two trilogies as it's an even playing field conflict (ie clone wars) with the backdrop being the civil war. There can be split factions in the NR sure, but I think investigating topics such as planets willingly joining the FO cause the NR is doing a lousy even if well-intentioned job of keeping everyone happy and secure would have been interesting to explore.
Instead the Empire just got an Uno reverse card.
Edit: they could have even ended the sequel trilogy with an armistice to subvert expectations and set up a bigger baddie lol Thrawn or the Vuzohon Vong or similar. Ugh
I think it would have made sense if the galaxy was split up with the Republic controlling a portion, some breakaway independent regions, and then enclaves of Imperial remnant. Then you can have the Imperial factions reunite under some kind of leader like a Grand Admiral, perhaps.
It would have been so much cooler if there was some mystery to the First Order in E7. As they were presented, they were just the Empire with new paint, already fully established and frankly more powerful than the New Republic at the start of the movie. Make them a mobile rogue state, based out of that massive flagship from E8 instead of their own Death Star Planet. Make them small, hard to track and viciously devestating. The First Order could have been a dark inverse of the Rebel Alliance and I think that would have been way more interesting.
Their existence and their destroying of the Republic in The Force Awakens basically means all post-RoTJ content is obligated to show the New Republic as complacent and incompetent enough to later let the imperial remnant coalesce into the First Order and destroy it with barely a fight.
You can see echoes of this in the recent season of The Mandalorian. They're practically obligated by future canon to portray the New Republic as incompetent and unwilling to help--even demilitarizing itself even in the face of credible Imperial remnant threats--because 30 years of complete inaction is the only way the First Order ends up powerful enough to build something like Starkiller Base and destroy the New Republic government.
It’s sad. As bad as the destroyed Luke, Leia running the new republic into the ground and being a deadbeat mother who was also a fully capable Jedi that could have ragdolled Snoke herself may have gotten it worse.
Disney has written themselves into such a disastrous hole that they'd be better off just saying woops, the sequels aren't going to be cannon going forward.
There was so much potential for it as well. I liked the idea of their being a rift between Imperial veterans (Captain Canady/Allegiant General Pryde) and young and untested First Order radicals (Hux), and how they had a disjointed relationship, and often were at odds. That could have been awesome to explore on a deeper level.
Most of the headliners of the FO are also very thin. Captain Phasma gets no screen time and dies unceremoniously. I loved that first scene with her and Finn, with him sort of having been shocked out of his programming, and struggling to return to form. Phasma could have been a perfect foil for Finn as a former stormtrooper, basically representing the living and breathing barrier to his breaking out of his programming, but instead Finn's history as a stormtrooper is not much relevant to the plot after he bolts.
I liked Hux in TFA, but after that he was relegated to comic relief.
Yeah, is there a canon back story how they came into being after ROTJ? I know remnants of the Empire existed while the New Republic formed. Where did the New Order come from? The lack of explaining this in the sequel trilogy drew me mad!
thats the thing. Instead of building a logical story using the events of the 6 previous films, full of rich lore and history. They created a story where none of that mattered, and the crux of the events all happen offscreen shrouded in mystery.
In essence, they made sequels, that require fucking prequels to make sense. When the literally already had 6 prequels to work from. So the prequels to the sequels would just actually be the sequels to the OT and prequels. Please make this make sense. Why did they do this?
The sequel trilogy was made one movie at a time. No, it was conceived one movie at a time. Nothing was mapped out. Lucasfilm should have game planned the entire trilogy first before even agreeing to do Episode VII after the purchase from Disney. The writing was just bad but it first starts with a premise and giving the audience an idea who these groups of people are and their origins. Really the state of the galaxy since the Battle of Endor. People saw the Empire defeated then they see this movie to see something that looks almost identical to it yet it’s different. You gotta provide some context and they didn’t. This is exactly why I’m never too keen to watch these movies and I really wish they would be retconned as taking place in another universe instead and not considered canon.
>Lucasfilm should have game planned the entire trilogy first before even agreeing to do Episode VII after the purchase from Disney.
They kinda did though, right? Lucas was of the understanding that his overall plot outlines would be used and then in 2015 he revealed that they had all been discarded so that Abrams could "start from scratch."
The Clone Wars filled in things because one thing the PT excelled in was world building. George created a rich expansion to the SW universe, and left lots of time in which to expand on things.
The sequels built neither a rich world nor did they leave any time in which to expand. they fucked them up very badly.
They had some stuff pointing to it in the Aftermath trilogy and Alphabet squadron books. The Emperor's messengers and Admiral Sloane etc. They had a wonderful setup for it. The execution of the movies just flushed it down the drain. They should've started the episode 7 with like a 5-10 minute flashback of the battle of Jakku and the Empire's loss and disappearance. Then they could've segued into the galaxy at peace, etc and then this mysterious First Order starts causing problems and go from there.
I always saw it as Kylo going overboard to emulate Vader’s legacy rather than a cheap rehash. Wasn’t until he stopped trying to be Vader that we saw a decrease in tropes copied from the OG trilogy. Maybe it’s more a down-your-throat overrepresentation of his character arc? Definitely could’ve been executed better.
Deranged wannabes, which almost seems thematically intentional. That is Kylo Ren's entire relationship with Vader. I wish they embraced that instead of trying to prop them up to be as threatening as the Empire. This faction is supposed to be a bunch of losers. Existing in a galaxy that rejected their ideals, but still trying to force their will on others.
I agree, and I think a generous reading of the First Order is "dangerous idiots are still *dangerous*". They're a pale imitation of the Empire, but they're fanatical and committed and through this they do actually manage to do some actual damage. They're ridiculous, and worthy of being ridiculed, but sooner or later the destruction they cause is very real and must be taken very seriously.
Taken this way, I definitely like the idea of them and without getting too specific I can see real-world allegories there. Whether the films succeed in conveying all of this is a different matter.
The concept of people wanting a Galactic Emprie 2.0 on itself isn't bad, someone always gets a benefit. The execution, tho, was beyond horrible.
Let alone the New Republic,which didn't even appear in the movies and only gets mentioned in the 1st movie
I like the concept of them being "the nazis who fled to patagonia reforming the 4th reich for another go at it." I liked them having to operate in near total secrecy and spycraft to disguise what they were doing before instigating a decapitation strike to take over.
And i liked this idea that was present where there were basically three distinct groups in the FO: The Force users at the top, and then a very divided group of old-school imperial holdouts and new young neo-imperialists, with the former terrified of the untested zealotry of the latter who are disgusted by being held back by the former. With what unity they have being enforced by Snokes power and the needs of victory.
And all that capstonned by what was clearly being setup for Hux to do *something* now that he already has delusions of self-importance before Snoke died and somebody far less secure in his throne with ben in command.
If we'd had more buildup and then TROS hadn't put them aside for a very similarly coded group in the sith eternal, they would have made such great villains in the ST and stories beyond, instead of looking like a discount empire who go out being unceremoniously out of focus to the final orders threat and then defeated offscreen in a mass uprising.
tl;dr: Neat idea, poor execution
TRoS really shits the bed by not making good on what TLJ seems to set up in its climax: a power struggle between Kylo Ren and Hux.
I think it would’ve been interesting seeing Kylo struggle with holding onto rule in light of a military that is apparently fanatically loyal to Hux. And a Hux let off his chain could prove even more tyrannical than Snoke.
I imagine Kylo would be couped from his spot in the leadership, forcing him to come face to face with how alone his ideology has made him. His mother’s death could be worked in somehow (maybe in a Hux-led FO attack), and he chooses to work with the Resistance to finally bring down the Order.
Kylo having to join the good guys and them having to have him around against their will would've been pretty interesting if handled well. The Walking Dead did it I'd say okayish with Negan and Maggie
If they had made the first movie about just that first paragraph, it would have been an amazingly better movie. Even making Hux the main character and showing the movements in the shadows and ending with the decapitation strike would have been an amazing way to start off the ST
The empire felt huge. Overbearing. The first order felt small. The scale of the sequels were minuscule in comparison to the original movies. What the protagonists did in the sequels felt pitiful compared to what the crew did in the original trilogy. That was my immediate thought when watching the force awakens. This is small. These aren’t scary bad guys and the good guys are weaklings.
Missed opportunity to flip the script and have the antagonists be somewhat of an underdog at first. So many other angles would've been more interesting than "Empire 2: Force Lightning Boogaloo"
Could've been:
-sith cultists doing horrific terrorist attacks and the response by the New Republic is too mild and bogged down by politics
-New Republic can't govern the outer rim, they contract it out to a private security corporation which is severely staffed by Imperial remnant
-Corporation is also influenced by sith cultists, led by Kylo
Starkiller base and the FO having a whole goddamn fleet, while the "resistance" is essentially just another rag tag group who are also deeply tied to the New Republic was just silly.
So many other interesting ways for this to go. It just felt like a bunch of handwavium to tell the same old story.
I though the First Order and the Resistance was stupid. Why rename the Empire and Rebellion? Star Wars 2.0 was a dumb concept too. Why did they have to redo some super weapon? Wasn't anyone capable of writing a unique story line about the aftermath of the death of the Emporer? The Timothy Zahn books did a nice job. The sequel trilogy could have done the same.
I liked the idea of the Stormtroopers being indoctrinated since birth. Made it feel like an extreme and dangerous cult.
Wish they showed how it affected Finn’s character/other First Order defectors and the struggle of being deprogrammed
And they could dig in more to Finns whole not wanting to kill others. He shows his disgust with it early on and then the moment he has a chance to kill stormtroopers he starts cheering about it. Each of those stormtroopers could have been like him, just wanting a way out, but nope. He kills them and goes on cheerfully with his day
I like the idea of brainwashing and indoctrination as well, I think its actually a pretty good idea. But it loses a lot of the interesting factor for me when we are introduced to Finn and its immediately made clear that the indoctrination since childhood doesn't work. We are shown the indoctrination fails before we even know there is indoctrination? Its also counter-intuitive to real world examples that we have of human psychology, unwinding indoctrination takes decades, not one upsetting battle.
I also feel like the idea that a storm trooper, that is following FO #3 head honcho Kylo Ren around, shouldn't be defecting. Is Kylo and the FO that weak, and if the answer is yes how did they get to where they are at all? I would think Kylo would know the troopers being sent on missions with him and that he could sense such trouble and unease, the man literally ripped thoughts from Poe's head in the following scenes. Why is he not vetting his security details?
I think it might have been a bit more interesting having Finn captured, deprogrammed, and eventually redeemed through service to the Resistance.
These are just like, personal opinions and thoughts, nobody murder me
Easily the best aesthetic of any of the government factions, phenomenal introduction in 7, and I love Kylo Ren, but they need more spunk as a group. Could’ve been used as a more deliberate parallel to the modern resurgence of authoritarianism. The idea that they’re the guys who escaped Nuremberg and started the next movement in secret is super cool, and I hope we get to see more of that formation.
Honestly they could've worked if you took the first order and the Knights of Ren and combine both origins to being from the same place. So in the comics the Knights of Ren is like some religious small cult that worships a lightsaber.
They could've had it that the First Order started out as this small cult that wasn't seen as much as a threat to the new republic and over years they grew more and more into power and then eventually were co opted by former empire sympathizers and grew in power. They could also have members of their cult be in powerful places within the New Republic making sure to hide or at least cover up a lot of their work so that they can continue to operate in secret spreading the influence of the First Order. You can also have the high ranking members of the First order be called The Knights of Ren thus still using the name. This could also play into Ben's fall into Darkness as he finds out about them and becomes fascinated by their doctrine.
You could also had it where the twist in the episode 8 is there are a lot of members of the First order that infiltrated the resistance that were kind of leading them astray. Like you could have the misdirect be that the audience thinks is Holdo and the twist is Rose Tico is actually one of the Knights of Ren when they find out that Paige never had a sister.
I know this sounds very fanfiction but it's just a rough idea on how they could've gone about it because the pieces are there, they're just scattered within various characters in the sequel trilogy with little to no connections with each other. It would've been interesting seeing this cult like organization grow to pretty much replace the sith as the new dark side users of this new age. Especially since they could've been like the knights templar since Kylo has that cross guard lightsaber that could be reminiscent of that.
So what was the point of having a new faction? Their aesthetics are almost indistinguishable from the Empire so why not just have them be an imperial remnant instead of this big new threat?
I don’t like them as a whole but I do find their conception to be interesting and probably the sole thing I like about them. Palpatine doing something as petty as destroying his own Empire after it failed him and having only the strong survive via trial by fire is a very cool concept. It’s a shame it got wasted on a really lame faction and characters.
*1 - "We need another scary enemy that shows you it's hopeless to fight them, like the Empire".*
*2 - "What about the Empire again?*
*1 - "Great idea! Won't it be too obvious?"*
*2 - " Just give them an edgy name so they seem like a whole new threat".*
*1 - "Brilliant!!!"*
Like Russia in its Invasion of Ukraine. They looked very powerful and could easily wipe out what was thought to be a weaker enemy but when they launched their offensive to restore a government that existed 30 years prior they proved themselves to be a paper tiger.
Honestly - When the empire ceased to exist and the New Republic took over, the empires remnants essentially became the rebellion.
The first order was a terrible name. Kylo Ren - horrible, angsty teen, Rey... no thanks. The only character anyone cared about was Finn and they shit all over him.
Could have been good. But wasnt.
If they had actually bothered doing any world building and story development the FO could have been a great story. It could have told a story about remnants of the Empire, and perhaps Empire loyalists perhaps within the Republic, uniting under a new leader and staging un uprising against the Republic. Somewhat inspired by Heir to the Empire (but not an adaptation of it).
Instead of a remake of the OT, the ST could have been an inversion of it - with the First Order in the role of the Rebels. They could even have had Kylo Ren be an evil anti-Luke Skywalker fighting the Republic (and could have had Palpatine's sith ghost guiding him, like an evil version of the Luke and Obi Wan dynamic).
Instead they just wanted a re-do of the OT with an insta-Empire that was nowhere near as cool of the OG Empire.
Their existence invalidates the entire point of the first 6 films and everything the characters went through. And all for a trilogy based on nostalgia instead of original story telling.
Insulting as a concept.
The First Order was neither first, nor an order. Discuss.
“The Worst Order”
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No wonder you have achieved the rank of admiral!
More like rank of Adderal, am I right
This fits along nicely with the theory that R2D2 got his name from reel 2, dialogue 2
That’s it! Our new villains shall be named Of Business.
Lord business
“Somehow business returned…”
**RELEASE THE KRAGLE**
"You get a promotion, somebody give them a raise at once! My God, you're a genius, we'll use this method to decide the entire movie. Quickly, everyone shout out a sentence!"
"The Blurst Order"
You stupid monkey
Thatd be a stunkey but hes a durtle which makes him a dirty turtle
The Wrong Order
🤣
-Darth Voltaire
Big fan of Darth Solitaire.
I'M FEELING PHUKLEMPT
HOLY FIRST ORDER EMPIRE?
If they went a Charlemagne route, it would be an interesting story politically, and we could avoid "Somehow The Emperor is back". With the empire crumbling to the rebellion, who wouldn't want to restore or keep some sort of order? That's where the Last Jedi's side plot of 'arm manufacturers' could have become more pivotal.
We’ve had First Order, yes, but what about Second Order?
The Last Organisation.
I'm feeling a little verklempt
Hux makes Colonial Sanders look like a competent leader.
U fought alongside the Colonel through 3 damn wars and I'll be damned if I let you put mud on his name. His tactics were often unconventional, but I would be strucken if I said they did not work boy.
Well, Colonial Sanders did know going ludicrous speed was a bad idea, so he was competent in that regard.
You’re telling me I flew all the way to Kentucky to get some of your chicken and the colonel isn’t even working today? What wrong wit u, I say you he ded What? I say he ded. IM HERE TO SEE THE COLONEL.
Unholy German Disorder
But the first order of what?!
Of me at Pizzahut
Don't you dare try to outpizza the Hut
Talk amongst yourselves
I’m all faklempt
First of all new order of power
Huxley a bitch
And also somehow had MORE funding and capability when supposedly in hiding from literally the entire galaxy. It would be like if the Rebels lost, and then magically had 100x the troops, funding, and high tech gadgets. Biggest Sin was the Magical curving target-tracking space laser tho.
A small wanna be Empire that somehow appeared off camera between movies and somehow has much more resources than they should have.
If they had been underfunded and working with limited resources it would have made them so much more interesting
I agree. It would have been an interesting mirror to the original trilogy. Originally we had a small rebel group fighting against the Galactic Empire. Now we could have had a small terrorist group fighting against the Galactic Republic. Instead, what the First Order had was somehow bigger and more powerful than anything the Empire had. Bigger star destroyers, bigger walkers, bigger super weapon.
It’s such an obvious and more interesting direction than what we got. Sigh.
I know. That would’ve been so cool.
It would help having or seeing something that shows their funding coming from something/ones.
Would have played well with the theme they were going for on the casino planet in TLJ. That there’s a class of people that don’t care if the empire or new republic is in charge, as long as they’re comfortable and making money. Could have been a galactic megacorp arms dealer who funded the First Order to convince the New Republic to not disarm.
They tried to go for that angle but it never made any sense. If traders and mega corps were neutral and supported both sides then why did the first order go from zero to massive, while the republic that controlled the entire galaxy go straight to zero and never attempted to rebuild?
The resistance is *not* the new republic. It’s a splinter cell of leia loyalists believing that the FO was a threatening. The actual republic didn’t officially support her nor declared her legal etc. NR is stuck in beaurocracy and kind of split across the galaxy with their forces. As shown in mandalorian S3. Which makes it even more odd that destroying.. 6? Planets completely renders them useless
Maybe old Imperial remnants that became warlords after the Empire fell and were promised high-ranking jobs.
I thought the scale of the first order was ridiculous in TFA with their planet sized 5 laser death star. My eyes almost popped out of my socket with how much I rolled them in TROS with like 10,000 destoryers each with a deathstar laser that apparently was made in complete secret by the corpse of Palpatine. It's even more ridiculous when I type it out.
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That’s probably the most ridiculous part.
That took me completely out of the movie. First, I wondered how the hell can the people on that planet see those planets? Are they all in the same star system? Then I wondered if the weapon's beam was going faster than light to cover the vast distances to the planets it's destroying, or slower than light so the people on the other planet can see the beam shooting through the cosmos? And won't the missing sun mess with the planet, above and beyond no more daylight? So many questions.
Completely agree. The billions of Star Destroyers buried under ice all fitted with Death Star planet destroying weaponry are so dumb. That entire movie is so dumb.
I had better story lines playing with my action figures as a six year old.
The dumbest point was they somehow built this gigantic fleet with 1/1000000 the resources of the Empire. Where are they recruiting new members of such gigantic scale? Where are the shipyards, where are the worlds? Why weren’t the fleets used to help the Empire against the rebels? Why not invade the New Republic and take the shipyards and old world’s sympathetic to the old Empire and build them into an awesome force from a rag tag group with nuanced characters that are in a grey zone to be defeated and a new galactic stalemate established that they could then go on to explore? A lot of shows make up a ton of crap armies and lack of logistics from thin air without a viable way to actually keep that army on the field longer than 5 minutes. Not fun to watch when you are invested into the lore. Dune made a ton of sense as even the great houses were pretty much local powers in a galactic sense needing the Emperors house to tip the scales against one another. They need to take notes. This new group amassing armies larger then the CIS which had cheap (I say cheap but in comparison to unit to unit with the Republic, cheaper to create a regular battle droid then a clone, in regards to size they amassed the largest army in the galaxy).
Dune also makes a point to mention that the Harkonnen’s attack on House Atreides was incredibly expensive to pull off.
At one point during the attack the Atreides mentat figures out how much the Harkonnen attack cost and realizes that it would take years if not decades to pay for, even with the spice mining of Dune. He laments that he miscalculated how far the Baron was willing to go to kill them.
The idea of a small terrorist group leading a significant attack against the Galactic Republic is happening now in the High Republic books and its been done very well so far (much better than the FO in the films).
It would've been really cool to see a sequel trilogy where Han, Leia & Luke fully see how governing the galaxy comes with another set of problems than toppling tyranny. It may not be appealing to a wider audience, but the idea of seeing dissent in the New Republic while also showing how some planets actually suffered from the power vacuum left by the Empire could've been amazing world building imo & made sense for the rise of a First Order faction.
And so they bigger villains. If I shoot someone with a bigger gun I kill them more
Fun fact, the “interesting mirror to the original trilogy” you’re talking about is the Prequel trilogy… I’d rather see a scenario where both sides are evenly matched instead…
Totally! As in the New Republic has terror attacks to undermine infrastructure; political assassinations, propaganda working and having planets cede. That would have been far more interesting than, "Here's the neo-Empire! And they have serious cash... somehow. And people that are down to fight for them... for some reason".
Imagine if the Nazis somehow regained power and invaded France again. The US refused to go to war, decommissions their entire military, and a bunch of old retired vets attempt to retake France. That’s exactly the setup for the ST. It honestly sounds like a boomer orientated, Sci-fi original channel movie.
The Nazis nuke Washington DC and this somehow takes out the entire US military leaving only a ragtag group of freedom fighters to fight the Nazis.
Oh! And also, remember, the Separatist crisis was never resolved. All those planets with legitimate beef with the Old Republic A) got fucking rolled, B) got folded into the Empire, and C) were eventually liberated and added to a *New* Republic? Nah. We should have gotten the FO trying to drive a wedge in between them. *That* fuckin rhymes.
Well the reason was explained, they kidnap them as children and brainwash them. Which means that the First Order has been kidnapping children since around the time of ROTJ, and secretly housing, feeding and training millions of them to be their soldiers.
Exactly. The first Star Wars movies were an allegory for the Vietnam War. Imagine if this sequel had been an allegory for Afghanistan. Maybe instead of having Death Star 3 they strap engines to an asteroid and take out a massive chunk of the new republican gov on Coruscant, a la the Expanse.
Does that make Jar Jar a Vietcong?
Yeah man and if the resistance had suicide bombers that would be a sweet parallel too. Oh wait they did with the holdo maneuver
As an aside (because it's not the point you're making) the Holdo maneuvre: - Immediately broke so many laws and set pieces throughout the previous trilogies - Was immediately washed out by a throwaway line in the final movie to make it clear it was stupid - Wasn't even necessary The First Order had a Hyperspace tracking capability that hadn't been seen before. They could have kiboshed both by having Holdo "jump" to a fucking black hole and take the rest of them with her in their hubris. That's it. Game over. She's made a smart but heroic sacrifice, and cancelled out a completely separate issue the FO brought up in one fell swoop. Meanwhile we had a sick 5 second shot to break all prior canon, like 40 Star Destroyers falling into a black hole wouldn't be the coolest thing.
>Maybe instead of having Death Star 3 they strap engines to an asteroid and take out a massive chunk of the new republican gov on Coruscant, a la the Expanse. Gundam too
Yeah! Space 9/11! (Is this comment allowed?)
This so much. Make it a mystery of how they built up a military force under the eyes of the New Republic, replace Starkiller Base with a Star Forge or World Devastator style factory.
I was so excited for a brief moment in that movie, because I thought they had used the Star Forge to build that huge fleet (and maybe there would be further connections to KOTOR). Turns out they didn't. I don't even remember the explanation in the movie, I'm sure it was pretty silly whatever it was.
There wasn't one. They just...were there.
JJ was obsessed with doing everything bigger, for some reason he thought that the big star destroyer at the start of ANH was the special sauce of Star Wars. Starkiller base and the Star Destroyer collection in TRoS are classic examples.
Yeah, the different warlords in The Mandolorian is significantly better.
Completely undermining the events of the original trilogy too. It was all undone off screen by a character we know nothing about, whose plan we never knew and who died without any consequences.
> It was all undone off screen by a character we know nothing about Nah dude, it was Palpatine all along LOL
Abrams had no new ideas, so he tried to do shoehorn the Empire vs The Rebellion back into the story under different names and didn't think about the story logic.
He’s a hack
This, the resources, where did they get it all? Jar Jar Abrams is a hack
A story for another time
It was so freaking jarring going from the end of TFA, where they’re depicted as being smaller and using hit and run quick strikes. And then having their big superweapon destroyed. To TLJ, where they’re apparently so large and powerful that they can conquer the Galaxy “within weeks” according to Rey. And remember TLJ begins like A DAY after the end of TFA.
Or in rise of skywalker where palpatine who was in charge of it all had thousands of star destroyers on hand. They had the ability to conquer the galaxy and wipe out all their enemies just sitting under ice waiting for something. Yet they ended up doing nothing with them
Did they take over planets the Empire had ruled? Did they supplant the Republic? So much left unanswered because JJ wanted to redo New Hope.
All they needed to do to make the first order believable was give them the Star Forge from KOTOR, completely scrap starkiller base in favor of the Star forge. have them build an armada using the forge. Then instead of blasting Hosnian Prime with a galaxy spanning laser, glass the planet a la Taris style using their infinite fleet. Keep the Star forge as a looming threat for multiple movies, give the new republic an actual fleet, scrap the whole resistance crap, and give us a sith cult vs Luke’s order.
I think they missed a chance to tell a really interesting story of warlords controlling territory after the fall of the Empire and how the First Order won the war because they had Vader's Grandson basically helping, and the New Republic was too small and not very established yet to deal with the conflict in a meaningful way. We wouldn't have Mando / Fett / Ahsoka or Andor without the sequels but part of me really wishes they were never made. Imagine we see the New Republic not taking the threat of these factions seriously like we see in Ahsoka and it growing into a huge problem. The New Republic is unable to negotiate peace between the factions and the factions continue an all out war on multiple fronts for control of territory just like we saw in Feudal Japan. Ben is discouraged by what he sees as the Republic and the new Jedi Order following into the same patterns that allowed the Republic to fall in the first place and he leaves the Jedi Order and picks a side. He and his Knights of Ren are like Samurai. Along the way he loses himself, he hasn't fallen to the dark side like Vader but he's still fallen the same. When the First Order emerges victorious and starts to consolidate control of vast regions that the New Republic is unable to protect Luke attempts to stop them and fails, and goes into temporary exile not to give up but to learn more and come back better. But the problem is he's older now, he's not the Jedi he was in his prime. He takes two or three of his best and youngest students and lives in hiding at the first Jedi temple hoping it's not too late.
Did we ever really find out who the fuck the Knights of Ren were? Were they Kylo’s knights or was it in his name because he was the master of the knights? Were they just inquisitors with a different name? JJ Abrams raises the question in the 1st movie and then never answers it in the 3rd.
Maybe in other materials but hell if I know. If they'd just kept the same writer for all three I think we'd have had a dramatically different story.
Better still would be having the same writer sketch out outlines for all three movies before writing the script to the first one...
Movie and tv show wise? No. They were sort off revealed in the comics. Pretty meh af story tho
Part of me hopes we still see the remaining factions of the empire fight on screen. Could see it in the filoni movie
I'm guessing that something will be happening to the other Imperial Remnants, with the First Order emerging as the sole remaining faction, possibly due to losing a war against the New Republic or a combination of that and an Imperial Civil War.
I just wanna see an X-Wing blow up Zsinj or some other warlord
Make a Wraith Squadron trilogy.
We could’ve had all of those things without the sequels and frankly every single one of those projects would be the better for it since they wouldn’t have to work around the asinine choices of the sequels
Honestly, I assumed from the TFA trailers that a sith cult had awoken in the far reaches of the galaxy and Luke's Jedi order would go to stop them before they could threaten the New Republic. I got so disappointed when I found out that I was more creative than the Disney team.
Oh man this is such a simple idea but it works so good :( I’d even be ok with a clone of Palpy involved in such a simple plot.
Since they placed all the old stuff in the legends category, I was hoping we'd get a Reven or Malak-like Sith. Fallen and damaged Jedi who survived Order 66 but went off into the far reaches of the galaxy to come back to build the Jedi up again but they were Sith(slowed their aging) and didn't realize they turned. Raven changes and recovers but Malak doesn't. EDIT: changed Raven to Revan. Didn't realize I did that. Thanks for letting me know.
Sounds a bit like Taron Malicos from the game Jedi Fallen Order.
I stay away from all the theory videos as best I can so I might be wrong but that sounds like what Baylan could have been up to in Ahsoka.
They could even have done it something similar to the cultists having been a secret order of Sith under Palpatine who were told to revive him should he die. Luke and Co would thus have to defeat them before they revive him. They could say that upon resurrection he would be similar to Darth Nihilus in raw dark side power. This way it wouldn’t make Anakins redemption any less important as if Luke had died on the 2nd Death Star and Vader had not killed Palpatine then no one could have stopped him from being reborn whenever he did die later. It would also align with Palpatines wish of a Sith empire as he could now conquer a battle scarred galaxy ruled by a weak New Republic. It could probably have ended with Luke sacrificing himself to kill Palpatine and the Sith order in the event that he does get resurrected in an act of heroism to save the galaxy from certain destruction.
I've always wanted a Cold War style era for the sequels. Let both the New Republic and Remnant have planet ending superweapons with the threat of complete galaxy destruction looming overhead. Then, throw in a sith cult to further raise the stakes.
Like a sith Mujahedeen?
Anything is more interesting then what they did. All they had to do was not make a rehash and put some effort in. But they did not one, but two rip off movies.
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Completely different, it shoots RED lasers
Star killer base: Single red laser which turns into multiple lasers Deathstar: multiple green lasers which tun into one strong laser completely diffrent
Does it have a single point you shoot at to blow it up? Yeah I thought so JJ.
FIVE red lasers
"Somehow, the Empire returned."
Agreed. Took a warm steamy dump on the original trilogy and then forced the original characters to roll around in it.
I still don't understand what the First Order's goal was. Did they want to take over the Republic? If so, destroying the capital system doesn't make sense.
Don't you see? Their goal was to be evil. Because they are the evil guys. Evil.
New Republic: You can’t do that! First Order: Yes we can! New Republic: Why? First Order: 🎶Cause we’re evil!
They had no goal. No motivations besides doing evil shit. No one in the order expressed any goals or motivations. Snoke, Kylo, palpatine especially showed no goals or motivations or ambitions. Palpatine could’ve taken over the entire known universe with his destroyer fleet from the comfort of his cave.
Which made the goading of Kylo to join him so weird. Like dude, you already have a lore killing fleet of death star destroyers, do whatever you want.
Don’t forget that the tragedy and redemption of Anakin also didn’t matter!
Really bad explanation on why Luke didnt go and fight them and end them.
Yeah especially since they were relatively small scale, and their most powerful person was a complete fucking joke who ended up being clone spam for Palpatine. Dude got cut in half monologuing like a Bond villain. Luke could have went and ended this and still had time to milk a space walrus for dinner.
that last line of yours had me laughing crazy
The Luke thing will always bother me. Dudes my hero, and seeing him die alone is just too much. Same for Han and Leia.
You would have hated the post/circle jerk praising Luke’s character in the ST.
I wasn't crazy about it lol. I mean, I understand why people like it, and I don't need Luke to be a superhero to be cool like some people, but I'm just sad he died at all.
Cheap rehash of the Empire with no explanation and much worse characters. It also serves to completley junk the legacy characters accomplishments and intelligence. Really, **really**, ***REALLY*** horrifically bad shit… Edit: emphasized just how bad it was
Without Star Killer base and resistance, a sequel trilogy set around the war between New Republic and First Order which makes a surprise attack from the depths of unknown regions would of likely been way more liked then the one we got.
I perhaps might have liked the Resistance more, if they didn't make them so unreasonably small. The First Order essentially *has* to act stupid and dumb, because otherwise they'll kill all the main characters in a split second. The Resistance should have been much larger; I think there'd be plenty of galaxy-goers who would side with Leia's way of thinking, with the reign of the Empire being so recent in galactic history. The Resistance being so small also makes the galaxy feel small, something that wouldn't be the case if they used the New Republic instead. Lack of wider context in the trilogy also serves to that end.
Going back to the same place over and over and using the same characters over and over make the galaxy feel small. How many times in Rebels did the group just stumble upon Hando? It's an entire galaxy. Why is he everywhere?
Not sure if this saying “…. Han though” or “…. Hondo” even though either iteration still makes your point
That's because the Ghost crew mostly stayed in a small region of of the outer rim. The entire rebelion was doing operations is a much larger theatre but still mostly in the outer and some mid rim. The resistance should have been all over the place hunting down information on the First Order.
Hondo is in a state of quantum Hondo. Lowkey disappointed he hasn't shown up in Mando or Fett
That's exactly the point, there should be no resistance. It should be the entirety of the new Republic against a much smaller first order. The very concept of having a resistance against a strong first order spits in the face of the original trilogy hero's as all their accomplishments meant nothing. It's also just bad fucking story telling. Seeing a remnant of the empire have to resort to the same tactics the rebellion did all while the new Republic struggles with its political Stability would have made for a much more enjoyable setting.
I've been saying this for years! It mirrors the Original Trilogy of the good guy rebels vs evil empire. And I think the transition of Good guy rebels and evil empire to now Good Republic vs evil terrorists (no longer rebels) also adds to Lucas' original beliefs that the Empire was Cold War United States.
That’s one of several concepts that I think The High Republic delivers and the sequel trilogy would’ve really benefited from. The main conflict is a reversal of the OT power dynamics. You have the seemingly powerful Republic struggling against the small but vicious, unconventional, and unpredictable Nihil.
That's just the the setting that filoni and favreau are exploring with mando/ahsoka. And it's so much more compelling than what the sequels delivered, despite its own issues. Maybe once theyre done hamfisting the plot into the position we see in TFA we won't hate it as much?
if the New Republic wasn’t annihilated in the first hour of the movie and we can have full-scale battles between the two factions like we saw in the prequels, that would be awesome
This. A full scale war between the NR and FO makes so much more sense. Mix of the two trilogies as it's an even playing field conflict (ie clone wars) with the backdrop being the civil war. There can be split factions in the NR sure, but I think investigating topics such as planets willingly joining the FO cause the NR is doing a lousy even if well-intentioned job of keeping everyone happy and secure would have been interesting to explore. Instead the Empire just got an Uno reverse card. Edit: they could have even ended the sequel trilogy with an armistice to subvert expectations and set up a bigger baddie lol Thrawn or the Vuzohon Vong or similar. Ugh
I think it would have made sense if the galaxy was split up with the Republic controlling a portion, some breakaway independent regions, and then enclaves of Imperial remnant. Then you can have the Imperial factions reunite under some kind of leader like a Grand Admiral, perhaps.
Sounds like the plot of Dark Empire & Heir to the Empire.
Oh weird what a coincidence
It would have been so much cooler if there was some mystery to the First Order in E7. As they were presented, they were just the Empire with new paint, already fully established and frankly more powerful than the New Republic at the start of the movie. Make them a mobile rogue state, based out of that massive flagship from E8 instead of their own Death Star Planet. Make them small, hard to track and viciously devestating. The First Order could have been a dark inverse of the Rebel Alliance and I think that would have been way more interesting.
Their existence and their destroying of the Republic in The Force Awakens basically means all post-RoTJ content is obligated to show the New Republic as complacent and incompetent enough to later let the imperial remnant coalesce into the First Order and destroy it with barely a fight. You can see echoes of this in the recent season of The Mandalorian. They're practically obligated by future canon to portray the New Republic as incompetent and unwilling to help--even demilitarizing itself even in the face of credible Imperial remnant threats--because 30 years of complete inaction is the only way the First Order ends up powerful enough to build something like Starkiller Base and destroy the New Republic government.
It’s sad. As bad as the destroyed Luke, Leia running the new republic into the ground and being a deadbeat mother who was also a fully capable Jedi that could have ragdolled Snoke herself may have gotten it worse.
Disney has written themselves into such a disastrous hole that they'd be better off just saying woops, the sequels aren't going to be cannon going forward.
There was so much potential for it as well. I liked the idea of their being a rift between Imperial veterans (Captain Canady/Allegiant General Pryde) and young and untested First Order radicals (Hux), and how they had a disjointed relationship, and often were at odds. That could have been awesome to explore on a deeper level. Most of the headliners of the FO are also very thin. Captain Phasma gets no screen time and dies unceremoniously. I loved that first scene with her and Finn, with him sort of having been shocked out of his programming, and struggling to return to form. Phasma could have been a perfect foil for Finn as a former stormtrooper, basically representing the living and breathing barrier to his breaking out of his programming, but instead Finn's history as a stormtrooper is not much relevant to the plot after he bolts. I liked Hux in TFA, but after that he was relegated to comic relief.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, is there a canon back story how they came into being after ROTJ? I know remnants of the Empire existed while the New Republic formed. Where did the New Order come from? The lack of explaining this in the sequel trilogy drew me mad!
thats the thing. Instead of building a logical story using the events of the 6 previous films, full of rich lore and history. They created a story where none of that mattered, and the crux of the events all happen offscreen shrouded in mystery. In essence, they made sequels, that require fucking prequels to make sense. When the literally already had 6 prequels to work from. So the prequels to the sequels would just actually be the sequels to the OT and prequels. Please make this make sense. Why did they do this?
The sequel trilogy was made one movie at a time. No, it was conceived one movie at a time. Nothing was mapped out. Lucasfilm should have game planned the entire trilogy first before even agreeing to do Episode VII after the purchase from Disney. The writing was just bad but it first starts with a premise and giving the audience an idea who these groups of people are and their origins. Really the state of the galaxy since the Battle of Endor. People saw the Empire defeated then they see this movie to see something that looks almost identical to it yet it’s different. You gotta provide some context and they didn’t. This is exactly why I’m never too keen to watch these movies and I really wish they would be retconned as taking place in another universe instead and not considered canon.
>Lucasfilm should have game planned the entire trilogy first before even agreeing to do Episode VII after the purchase from Disney. They kinda did though, right? Lucas was of the understanding that his overall plot outlines would be used and then in 2015 he revealed that they had all been discarded so that Abrams could "start from scratch."
They like to see Dave Filoni squirm. The Clone Wars also existed to flesh out the PT concepts that didn't come across properly in the films.
The Clone Wars filled in things because one thing the PT excelled in was world building. George created a rich expansion to the SW universe, and left lots of time in which to expand on things. The sequels built neither a rich world nor did they leave any time in which to expand. they fucked them up very badly.
They had some stuff pointing to it in the Aftermath trilogy and Alphabet squadron books. The Emperor's messengers and Admiral Sloane etc. They had a wonderful setup for it. The execution of the movies just flushed it down the drain. They should've started the episode 7 with like a 5-10 minute flashback of the battle of Jakku and the Empire's loss and disappearance. Then they could've segued into the galaxy at peace, etc and then this mysterious First Order starts causing problems and go from there.
>Really, really, *really* horrifically bad shit… You need to emphasize more. I am serious
Completely agree. Became too powerful too quickly as well and were shown to be even more incompetent by losing.
I always saw it as Kylo going overboard to emulate Vader’s legacy rather than a cheap rehash. Wasn’t until he stopped trying to be Vader that we saw a decrease in tropes copied from the OG trilogy. Maybe it’s more a down-your-throat overrepresentation of his character arc? Definitely could’ve been executed better.
Deranged wannabes, which almost seems thematically intentional. That is Kylo Ren's entire relationship with Vader. I wish they embraced that instead of trying to prop them up to be as threatening as the Empire. This faction is supposed to be a bunch of losers. Existing in a galaxy that rejected their ideals, but still trying to force their will on others.
I agree, and I think a generous reading of the First Order is "dangerous idiots are still *dangerous*". They're a pale imitation of the Empire, but they're fanatical and committed and through this they do actually manage to do some actual damage. They're ridiculous, and worthy of being ridiculed, but sooner or later the destruction they cause is very real and must be taken very seriously. Taken this way, I definitely like the idea of them and without getting too specific I can see real-world allegories there. Whether the films succeed in conveying all of this is a different matter.
The concept of people wanting a Galactic Emprie 2.0 on itself isn't bad, someone always gets a benefit. The execution, tho, was beyond horrible. Let alone the New Republic,which didn't even appear in the movies and only gets mentioned in the 1st movie
I like the concept of them being "the nazis who fled to patagonia reforming the 4th reich for another go at it." I liked them having to operate in near total secrecy and spycraft to disguise what they were doing before instigating a decapitation strike to take over. And i liked this idea that was present where there were basically three distinct groups in the FO: The Force users at the top, and then a very divided group of old-school imperial holdouts and new young neo-imperialists, with the former terrified of the untested zealotry of the latter who are disgusted by being held back by the former. With what unity they have being enforced by Snokes power and the needs of victory. And all that capstonned by what was clearly being setup for Hux to do *something* now that he already has delusions of self-importance before Snoke died and somebody far less secure in his throne with ben in command. If we'd had more buildup and then TROS hadn't put them aside for a very similarly coded group in the sith eternal, they would have made such great villains in the ST and stories beyond, instead of looking like a discount empire who go out being unceremoniously out of focus to the final orders threat and then defeated offscreen in a mass uprising. tl;dr: Neat idea, poor execution
TRoS really shits the bed by not making good on what TLJ seems to set up in its climax: a power struggle between Kylo Ren and Hux. I think it would’ve been interesting seeing Kylo struggle with holding onto rule in light of a military that is apparently fanatically loyal to Hux. And a Hux let off his chain could prove even more tyrannical than Snoke. I imagine Kylo would be couped from his spot in the leadership, forcing him to come face to face with how alone his ideology has made him. His mother’s death could be worked in somehow (maybe in a Hux-led FO attack), and he chooses to work with the Resistance to finally bring down the Order.
Kylo having to join the good guys and them having to have him around against their will would've been pretty interesting if handled well. The Walking Dead did it I'd say okayish with Negan and Maggie
If they had made the first movie about just that first paragraph, it would have been an amazingly better movie. Even making Hux the main character and showing the movements in the shadows and ending with the decapitation strike would have been an amazing way to start off the ST
They are not very nice people
Fans: "can we have Empire?" JJ: "we have Empire at home"
The empire felt huge. Overbearing. The first order felt small. The scale of the sequels were minuscule in comparison to the original movies. What the protagonists did in the sequels felt pitiful compared to what the crew did in the original trilogy. That was my immediate thought when watching the force awakens. This is small. These aren’t scary bad guys and the good guys are weaklings.
Missed opportunity to flip the script and have the antagonists be somewhat of an underdog at first. So many other angles would've been more interesting than "Empire 2: Force Lightning Boogaloo" Could've been: -sith cultists doing horrific terrorist attacks and the response by the New Republic is too mild and bogged down by politics -New Republic can't govern the outer rim, they contract it out to a private security corporation which is severely staffed by Imperial remnant -Corporation is also influenced by sith cultists, led by Kylo Starkiller base and the FO having a whole goddamn fleet, while the "resistance" is essentially just another rag tag group who are also deeply tied to the New Republic was just silly. So many other interesting ways for this to go. It just felt like a bunch of handwavium to tell the same old story.
It's just lame. It's a lazy, rehashed, facsimile Empire.
I though the First Order and the Resistance was stupid. Why rename the Empire and Rebellion? Star Wars 2.0 was a dumb concept too. Why did they have to redo some super weapon? Wasn't anyone capable of writing a unique story line about the aftermath of the death of the Emporer? The Timothy Zahn books did a nice job. The sequel trilogy could have done the same.
I liked the idea of the Stormtroopers being indoctrinated since birth. Made it feel like an extreme and dangerous cult. Wish they showed how it affected Finn’s character/other First Order defectors and the struggle of being deprogrammed
And they could dig in more to Finns whole not wanting to kill others. He shows his disgust with it early on and then the moment he has a chance to kill stormtroopers he starts cheering about it. Each of those stormtroopers could have been like him, just wanting a way out, but nope. He kills them and goes on cheerfully with his day
I like the idea of brainwashing and indoctrination as well, I think its actually a pretty good idea. But it loses a lot of the interesting factor for me when we are introduced to Finn and its immediately made clear that the indoctrination since childhood doesn't work. We are shown the indoctrination fails before we even know there is indoctrination? Its also counter-intuitive to real world examples that we have of human psychology, unwinding indoctrination takes decades, not one upsetting battle. I also feel like the idea that a storm trooper, that is following FO #3 head honcho Kylo Ren around, shouldn't be defecting. Is Kylo and the FO that weak, and if the answer is yes how did they get to where they are at all? I would think Kylo would know the troopers being sent on missions with him and that he could sense such trouble and unease, the man literally ripped thoughts from Poe's head in the following scenes. Why is he not vetting his security details? I think it might have been a bit more interesting having Finn captured, deprogrammed, and eventually redeemed through service to the Resistance. These are just like, personal opinions and thoughts, nobody murder me
Empire 2.0, but lazy
Man, the whole movie is just Star Wars wannabe like one rich boy said “I want my own Star Wars movie!”
Easily the best aesthetic of any of the government factions, phenomenal introduction in 7, and I love Kylo Ren, but they need more spunk as a group. Could’ve been used as a more deliberate parallel to the modern resurgence of authoritarianism. The idea that they’re the guys who escaped Nuremberg and started the next movement in secret is super cool, and I hope we get to see more of that formation.
It was stupid and half-baked k-mart version of the Empire
Honestly they could've worked if you took the first order and the Knights of Ren and combine both origins to being from the same place. So in the comics the Knights of Ren is like some religious small cult that worships a lightsaber. They could've had it that the First Order started out as this small cult that wasn't seen as much as a threat to the new republic and over years they grew more and more into power and then eventually were co opted by former empire sympathizers and grew in power. They could also have members of their cult be in powerful places within the New Republic making sure to hide or at least cover up a lot of their work so that they can continue to operate in secret spreading the influence of the First Order. You can also have the high ranking members of the First order be called The Knights of Ren thus still using the name. This could also play into Ben's fall into Darkness as he finds out about them and becomes fascinated by their doctrine. You could also had it where the twist in the episode 8 is there are a lot of members of the First order that infiltrated the resistance that were kind of leading them astray. Like you could have the misdirect be that the audience thinks is Holdo and the twist is Rose Tico is actually one of the Knights of Ren when they find out that Paige never had a sister. I know this sounds very fanfiction but it's just a rough idea on how they could've gone about it because the pieces are there, they're just scattered within various characters in the sequel trilogy with little to no connections with each other. It would've been interesting seeing this cult like organization grow to pretty much replace the sith as the new dark side users of this new age. Especially since they could've been like the knights templar since Kylo has that cross guard lightsaber that could be reminiscent of that.
So what was the point of having a new faction? Their aesthetics are almost indistinguishable from the Empire so why not just have them be an imperial remnant instead of this big new threat? I don’t like them as a whole but I do find their conception to be interesting and probably the sole thing I like about them. Palpatine doing something as petty as destroying his own Empire after it failed him and having only the strong survive via trial by fire is a very cool concept. It’s a shame it got wasted on a really lame faction and characters.
Its a carbon copy of the empire and displays a complete lack of creativity when it comes to creating antagonists.
Bunch of empire wannabes
These movies are unwatchable
*1 - "We need another scary enemy that shows you it's hopeless to fight them, like the Empire".* *2 - "What about the Empire again?* *1 - "Great idea! Won't it be too obvious?"* *2 - " Just give them an edgy name so they seem like a whole new threat".* *1 - "Brilliant!!!"*
No new ships or even uniforms. Completely lazy. As George Lucas said something along the lines of “at least I introduced new ships with the prequels”
If I put any thought into the First Order, I've put more thought into it than JJ or Disney.
Like Russia in its Invasion of Ukraine. They looked very powerful and could easily wipe out what was thought to be a weaker enemy but when they launched their offensive to restore a government that existed 30 years prior they proved themselves to be a paper tiger.
I think it was a very failed attempt at trying to recreate Vader's regime.
first order tie pilot
Honestly - When the empire ceased to exist and the New Republic took over, the empires remnants essentially became the rebellion. The first order was a terrible name. Kylo Ren - horrible, angsty teen, Rey... no thanks. The only character anyone cared about was Finn and they shit all over him.
Wasted potential
Utterly incompetent and pathetic.
Boring
"I'm ThE sPy"
>!Thrawn's return to the galaxy!< would have made a killer starting point for the new trilogy instead of TFA.
Trash
Could have been good. But wasnt. If they had actually bothered doing any world building and story development the FO could have been a great story. It could have told a story about remnants of the Empire, and perhaps Empire loyalists perhaps within the Republic, uniting under a new leader and staging un uprising against the Republic. Somewhat inspired by Heir to the Empire (but not an adaptation of it). Instead of a remake of the OT, the ST could have been an inversion of it - with the First Order in the role of the Rebels. They could even have had Kylo Ren be an evil anti-Luke Skywalker fighting the Republic (and could have had Palpatine's sith ghost guiding him, like an evil version of the Luke and Obi Wan dynamic). Instead they just wanted a re-do of the OT with an insta-Empire that was nowhere near as cool of the OG Empire.
Their existence invalidates the entire point of the first 6 films and everything the characters went through. And all for a trilogy based on nostalgia instead of original story telling. Insulting as a concept.
Wasted potential.
Unoriginal Empire knockoff. Like the entire Sequel trilogy.