STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (HUGE SPOILERS EVERYWHERE)

CT Phipps said:
1. Heroes who are good and noble

2. Feel good victory over evil.
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Aren't these things kinda absent in the wider picture of Star Wars? Much more present than in other franchises, for sure, but IIRC Expanded SW had various tones of grey, and good doesn't always win.
Then again, "Legends" aren't canon and we got this shit instead.
 
Atomkilla said:
Aren't these things kinda absent in the wider picture of Star Wars? Much more present than in other franchises, for sure, but IIRC Expanded SW had various tones of grey, and good doesn't always win.
Then again, "Legends" aren't canon and we got this shit instead.
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Generally, I felt Star Wars Legends was at its best in the Bantam Era and the NJO started drifting away from what made Star Wars good to becoming complete shit with LOTF and FOTJ. I also felt there was a fascist apologia tainting a lot of the latter EU with the "Legacy" comics being among the worst as we had the Empire as the good guys.

Then again, I'm one of the guys who think Kreia was completely full of shit and played KOTOR2 completely Light Sided with a devotion to the Jedi Order and Force.

JEDI JESUS!

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I don't mind TESTING the heroes but I think, weirdly, Matthew Stover did the greatest Star Wars novels in "Shadows of Mindor" and "shatterpoint" where the heroes are horribly TESTED by moral ambiguity and tough choices--yet STILL remain committed to Good over Evil.
 
CT Phipps said:
"Oh, of course the only way to defeat the Space Huns is with an Evil Empire!"
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Well, I recall that Palpatine was probably lying to Thrawn about unifying the galaxy to protect against threats beyond the galaxy to ensure Thrawn's loyalty and service. He obviously wouldn't care about protecting anyone, just amassing more power for himself.

It just so happened that Palpatine was right about those threats.

CT Phipps said:
Then again, I'm one of the guys who think Kreia was completely full of shit and played KOTOR2 completely Light Sided with a devotion to the Jedi Order and Force.
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I'm not that rabidly loyal to Kreia's teachings (since the story notes that she's highly biased against either sides) but there are merits to her points on not practicing extremes lest you end up like Vrook or worse Atris, purposely blocking off every opposing viewpoint and treating any form of debate as a personal attack.
Granted, Kreia's clearly manipulative and the Exile wound up not teaching her students the same things Kreia was teaching her (in fact, many of them, I imagine, became Light Side-adherent Jedi with more wisdom than the previous Council through worldly experiences).

Though her critique of the Jedi Order and the Sith during that era was spot on.
 
The Old Republic MMO didn't go with the very Thrawn-esque, "Revan and Malak were trying to protect the galaxy from the Secret Sith Empire" but in fact had Revan and Malak working FOR them.

I'm not sure which was better.

1. The idea Revan and Malak would betray the Republic so openly is not fitting their character as even at their darkest, I think they wouldn't submit to Vitiate.

2. It does make Kreia's statements all the more wrong as she assumed Revan and Malak were on some grand fascist crusade to protect the galaxy from a primordial evil but were actually just doing a power grab.
 
CT Phipps said:
The Old Republic MMO didn't go with the very Thrawn-esque, "Revan and Malak were trying to protect the galaxy from the Secret Sith Empire" but in fact had Revan and Malak working FOR them.

I'm not sure which was better.

1. The idea Revan and Malak would betray the Republic so openly is not fitting their character as even at their darkest, I think they wouldn't submit to Vitiate.

2. It does make Kreia's statements all the more wrong as she assumed Revan and Malak were on some grand fascist crusade to protect the galaxy from a primordial evil but were actually just doing a power grab.
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It's why I personally ignore TOR as a canonical entry.

It is an official entry, yes, but it felt like an insult to Revan (to have him submit to Vitiate so easily) and removes the interesting implications of Kreia's assumptions on Revan (that he never truly fell but was trying to prepare the Galaxy from the True Sith though I am aware Kreia is a wee bit biased here). So I personally ignore TOR from canon (then again with EU being mostly non-canon, that's not hard).

Though I'd argue Malak would submit to Vitiate. His lack of any wisdom (bombing an occupied city of his forces, spam using the Star Forge - that has horrible consequences for said spammer, ruining Revan's plan to prep the Galaxy from the True Sith etc.) would make it easier for someone like him to submit.
 
CT Phipps said:
You missed the Joke Yoda said.

Luke asked if Rey needed the scrolls.

Yoda said, "She already has what she needs."

Because she already stole them.

The problem with this scene is they totally should have had Ewan McGreggor do that line as it's true...from a certain point of view.
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If you were refering to me with that, I guess I did. I did catch that glimpse of the texts when I was watching the movie, so I knew they werent lost, but it took me a quick Internet search to find Yoda's exact phrasing and make the connection. When Yoda said it, I thought that he meant the texts were interesting reads but that they didnt contain anything useful for the situation at hand.
 
CerberusGate said:
It's why I personally ignore TOR as a canonical entry.

It is an official entry, yes, but it felt like an insult to Revan (to have him submit to Vitiate so easily) and removes the interesting implications of Kreia's assumptions on Revan (that he never truly fell but was trying to prepare the Galaxy from the True Sith though I am aware Kreia is a wee bit biased here). So I personally ignore TOR from canon (then again with EU being mostly non-canon, that's not hard).

Though I'd argue Malak would submit to Vitiate. His lack of any wisdom (bombing an occupied city of his forces, spam using the Star Forge - that has horrible consequences for said spammer, ruining Revan's plan to prep the Galaxy from the True Sith etc.) would make it easier for someone like him to submit.
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This is 50% of how I feel about the matter.

The other 50% is that it actually really amuses me in the same way that Rey's parents turned out to have sold her for another hit of spice and a ticket off Jakku.

No, in fact, there's no glamour to evil and there's no justification for what Revan and Malak did. It turns out that they really did just fall to the Dark Side and turned on the Republic in exchange for power, wealth, and serving as Vitiate's governors. It exposes Kreia's entire philosophy as being based on trying to make evil more mysterious, more justified, and more "interesting" than it is.

That evil, in the end, is just crude and selfish.

Mind you, I can't play TOR unless it's a Light Sith side because the Good Guys are too sickeningly good and the Dark Siders are too outright stupidly evil.
 
V.D.D.Williams said:
If you were refering to me with that, I guess I did. I did catch that glimpse of the texts when I was watching the movie, so I knew they werent lost, but it took me a quick Internet search to find Yoda's exact phrasing and make the connection. When Yoda said it, I thought that he meant the texts were interesting reads but that they didnt contain anything useful for the situation at hand.
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Yeah, we know Yoda's race now.

It's Troll.
 
CT Phipps said:
No, in fact, there's no glamour to evil and there's no justification for what Revan and Malak did. It turns out that they really did just fall to the Dark Side and turned on the Republic in exchange for power, wealth, and serving as Vitiate's governors
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Actually based on canonical materials, Revan didn't fall for power, wealth and loyalty to Vitiate. Those materials stated that he and Malak got mentally dominated by Vitiate and only broke out of it after they left Sith space. While they were still following Vitiate's command to conquer the galaxy, Revan had other plans for said conquest. Namely, to conquer the galaxy in order to unite it against Vitiate's Sith Empire, if only to supplant Vitiate as the galaxy's new Emperor by defeating said Empire. I'll give credit to the official materials for that, it didn't write off Kreia's idea on why Revan did his conquests but mixed it in.

Malak though was a megalomaniac and an idiot who simply wanted to conquer the galaxy regardless of how many cities and resources he razes. He probably forgot about the Sith Emperor and probably would have squandered his domination if he did actually win.
 
Mind you, I've always thought Revan wasn't nearly as better than Malak as people thought. People always are giving Malak shit but dude did what the Sith do and took his shot.
 
CT Phipps said:
I want 2 things from Star Wars.

1. Heroes who are good and noble

2. Feel good victory over evil.
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Mine:

1. Let me see the most possible of the bad guys, whoever they are, before being blown up due to exploitation of small gaps (you'd think they'd have learned by now). In the "crazy" case of being a grey matter (only prequels have done it off the movies IMO) both sides can get screen time either.

2. That's it.

The "good guys" are BORING. Sure they're nice and don't kill as many (assumedly) innocent people but that's where their appeal ends for me.
 
I confess, I've always found Star Wars to be the one franchise where the good guys had incredibly more personality than the conformist bad guys.

Darth Vader aside.
 
Gotta love the people who are like "lol fuck the fanboys, SUBVEEERSIV!" I admit, having a shit structure is pretty subversive. Everyone who doesn't like it is obviously one of those babies with the petition to remove it from canon, duh! Fuck those nerds who theorized about what would be logically next more!
 
One guy said, "Snoke isn't important and doesn't need backstory! Why do you think he has to be a big deal. The Emperor didn't have a backstory."

And I said to him, "Listen, the Emperor DID get backstory! He got three fucking movies worth. The prequels establish there hasn't been a Dark Side Master for a thousand years. Dooku required a Jedi Master to be corrupted. WHERE DID THIS DUDE COME FROM!? It's actually a plot hole!"

Again, I didn't need MUCH backstory.

Just the, "Who is Darth Vader?"

"A pupil of mine until he turned to evil. He betrayed and murdered your father."

Like,

"Who is Snoke? How did he corrupt Ben?"

"Not all Force users are Sith or Jedi. In my travels to find Jedi lore, I found a group called the Knights of Ren. Snoke was their leader and claimed to know much of the Jedi arts. Only later did I realize he believed anything was permitted to bring order to the galaxy. Ben came to agree."
 
CT Phipps said:
"Not all Force users are Sith or Jedi. In my travels to find Jedi lore, I found a group called the Knights of Ren. Snoke was their leader and claimed to know much of the Jedi arts. Only later did I realize he believed anything was permitted to bring order to the galaxy. Ben came to agree."
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That would have been loads better than what we got. In fact, were the Knights of Ren even mentioned in this film?

Also, the name Ren. Any materials explaining the origin of that name?
 
CerberusGate said:
That would have been loads better than what we got. In fact, were the Knights of Ren even mentioned in this film?

Also, the name Ren. Any materials explaining the origin of that name?
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They're apparently the students which went with Kylo Ren.

But Rian Johnson basically hated TFA and wanted to do his own thing so he did.
 
These new Star Wars movies just get ALL THE EXCUSES for being shit, don't they? Does Disney lace the food for their movies with something? Where do they get this cult level devotion?

It's true the Emperor didn't get much backstory before the prequels but this ignores something rather important, the main difference in the set up for the stories.

The first Star Wars got away with "not much backstory" for the Emperor because, well duh, the enemy is THE EMPIRE, do we need much explanation on what an Empire is? They employed a, kinda lazy admitedly, but effective form of narrative shorthand, Evil empires are as old as fiction itself. Why are they so Powerful? Well they are THE EMPIRE, their existence justifies their power and structure, they are just an empire.

But, what even is the first order? without some tie in book they are just some randos led by an old man with vague powers. They discarded the narrative shorthand yet kept all the trapings of it and didn't bother to fill in the empty space left by the narrative shorthand of "The Empire" disappearing. Why are they so powerful? Why are their forces endless? How did this Snoke guy even get to be the leader of what seems to be an entirely human faction? What are his powers? What is his motivation for anything?
We are jus supposed to not think about it because it's star wars and that's where you know a story is a failure. The brand is the only thing keeping these movies afloat. Yet they also want to pretend to have a deep message or some shit, desperate for relevance while not bothering with actually putting together a coherent story. And they know they'll get it because Fandom culture is now just a fucking a cult.
 
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