Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by Gandalf »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-11-29 01:28am Also, I can tell you from personal experience that there are always conflicts between actors and directors. Working in theatre, I have often disagreed with or questioned a director's choices. Sometimes you work it out. Sometimes actors just ignore the director and improv their own thing. A lot of the time, the actors have to suck it up and do what the director wants. Sometimes that leaves bad feelings. But I have often been dissatisfied with a decision made during rehearsals, and ended up liking the final product overall.

So Hamill's statements ring very true to me, going off my own experiences.
Amusingly, Hamill had the same disputes with Lucas on the set of Jedi. But presumably enough time has passed that the film is now in the Sainted Canon and thus can't be questioned. :P
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

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Kane Starkiller wrote: 2018-11-29 01:22pmMark Hamill's initial airing of grievances carries weight because it is not in his interest to shit on the movie. This is why we can safely assume that he is being truthful when he says that he disagreed with everything Rian Johnson decided about his character.
Him praising the movie later is a clear conflict of interest and is something we always see actors do when describing the movie they star in. Therefore it doesn't carry nearly as much weight.
Of course he was truthful when he disagreed. But as he later clarified, that was before the stuff he saw was contextualised. It's the same difference of opinion that happens in a fuckton of productions. Here it was made public and blew up to be a whole thing. I fail to see the conflict of interest here.

Also, more actors than you'd think shit on their films.
But let's assume that he is being perfectly truthful in that statement. He never states that he now suddenly totally agrees with the direction his character was taken in but that after he saw the movie he liked it. In other words he liked it despite the changes to Luke not because of it.
Which doesn't contradict my earlier point that more people than just hardcore EU fans think that what they did to Luke was bullshit.

Personally I don't see what Mark could've seen in the final product to truly change his mind. The casino animal chase? The yo mama joke? Seeing the end of the movie and realizing that after his character told Rey that "Force is not about moving rocks" Rey saves the day by literally moving rocks to free up the cave entrance? Yeah stunning, thrilling, much humor, challenging... :D
:lol: Way to walk back that appeal to authority.

Also, if that's the level on which you're understanding the film and what it has to say about things like the Force, maybe try a bit harder.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by Kane Starkiller »

Gandalf wrote:Of course he was truthful when he disagreed. But as he later clarified, that was before the stuff he saw was contextualised. It's the same difference of opinion that happens in a fuckton of productions. Here it was made public and blew up to be a whole thing. I fail to see the conflict of interest here.

Also, more actors than you'd think shit on their films.
And as I said it's not credible. He repeated his disagreement with Rian many times in interviews AFTER the movie was finished and only after shit hit the fan did he release that statement. Oh my god movie was so awesome, beautiful, complex, incredible, everything!!!!

Gandalf wrote::lol: Way to walk back that appeal to authority.
It wasn't an appeal to authority to point out the most obvious example of how dissatisfaction with the choices made in the film went all the way to the main cast of the movie as opposed to being limited to them crazy EU obsessed fans.

Gandalf wrote:Also, if that's the level on which you're understanding the film and what it has to say about things like the Force, maybe try a bit harder.
Here we go. :D I just can't understand the awesome complexity. Like when the movie invents the "sacred Jedi texts" out of thin air only to have Yoda dismiss them as obsolete even though the original trilogy never mentioned any quasi religious "sacred texts" and was always about Jedi teaching by example and with ad-hoc personalized lessons.
And then in the end Rey still kept the texts? So the texts are important?
Never mind just do the Rey-mirror scene that's cool. The equivalent of Luke's head in Vader's mask right? Except it makes no sense. Foreshadows nothing. Useless waste of screen time.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by Elheru Aran »

Kane Starkiller wrote: 2018-11-29 04:03pm Never mind just do the Rey-mirror scene that's cool. The equivalent of Luke's head in Vader's mask right? Except it makes no sense. Foreshadows nothing. Useless waste of screen time.
Is it a waste of time if they end up showing something connected to that in Episode 9?
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

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Elheru Aran wrote:Is it a waste of time if they end up showing something connected to that in Episode 9?
Well I guess anything is possible but after a 2-3 year waiting period for the next movie it would really have to be a fucking Kobayashi mug scene.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Kane Starkiller wrote: 2018-11-29 01:22pm
Gandalf wrote:Are you referring to the statement he's describing here?

"I’m sorry I lowered my guard and expressed my misgivings about it because that belongs in the process. That doesn’t belong to the public. And I made that statement before I saw the finished film… and I just think it’s a stunning film. It’s surprising, it’s challenging, it has humor, it’s probably the most complex Star Wars film since Empire, so… I had to put aside my feelings and try to realize the director’s vision the best I can."

So was all of the dissatisfaction to which you refer based on not understanding the film?
Mark Hamill's initial airing of grievances carries weight because it is not in his interest to shit on the movie. This is why we can safely assume that he is being truthful when he says that he disagreed with everything Rian Johnson decided about his character.
Him praising the movie later is a clear conflict of interest and is something we always see actors do when describing the movie they star in. Therefore it doesn't carry nearly as much weight.

But let's assume that he is being perfectly truthful in that statement. He never states that he now suddenly totally agrees with the direction his character was taken in but that after he saw the movie he liked it. In other words he liked it despite the changes to Luke not because of it.
Which doesn't contradict my earlier point that more people than just hardcore EU fans think that what they did to Luke was bullshit.

Personally I don't see what Mark could've seen in the final product to truly change his mind. The casino animal chase? The yo mama joke? Seeing the end of the movie and realizing that after his character told Rey that "Force is not about moving rocks" Rey saves the day by literally moving rocks to free up the cave entrance? Yeah stunning, thrilling, much humor, challenging... :D
In other words, "I don't like it, therefore I can't imagine any explanation other than that he was forced to recant. SECRETLY he must agree with me!"
Gandalf wrote: 2018-11-29 03:09pm
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-11-29 01:28am Also, I can tell you from personal experience that there are always conflicts between actors and directors. Working in theatre, I have often disagreed with or questioned a director's choices. Sometimes you work it out. Sometimes actors just ignore the director and improv their own thing. A lot of the time, the actors have to suck it up and do what the director wants. Sometimes that leaves bad feelings. But I have often been dissatisfied with a decision made during rehearsals, and ended up liking the final product overall.

So Hamill's statements ring very true to me, going off my own experiences.
Amusingly, Hamill had the same disputes with Lucas on the set of Jedi. But presumably enough time has passed that the film is now in the Sainted Canon and thus can't be questioned. :P
Yup.
KraytKing wrote: 2018-11-29 11:39amYou must be half blind if that statement Gandalf provided doesn't look like total bullshit.
Why? Because it doesn't validate your personal feelings?
Who's side are you arguing? If the First Order is a military state, then it is even more ridiculous that the New Republic was completely disarmed. This isn't a matter of "hard decisions," it's common sense. Depose an authoritarian, militarist regime, and finish the fucking job before you recycle all of your guns, or hold on to the God damn guns.
Easy to say as a detached, outside observer. Harder to say when you are the government of a new, unstable government, which is trying to differentiate itself from the military dictatorship that preceded it, and which has to contend with the views of a war-weary public.

You could say that the Union should have kept massive garrisons in the South far longer after the US Civil War. And you'd be right. Didn't mean it was a politically-viable thing to do.

Heck, in the real world today a lot of people would argue that the US should massively cut its military spending, despite the fact that it has several often hostile nuclear-armed rivals, at least one of which (NK) is arguably every bit as extreme as the First Order. Its easy to say in a fictional setting the the NR should just go in guns blazing and "finish the job"... but if you tried to make that argument in the real world in any number of situations, it would be a much harder sell.

In any case, the NR didn't completely disarm. Or did I just imagine the dozens of capital ships floating around Hosnia before the FO blew it up? Heck, where do you think the Resistance was getting their ships from? Presumably, under-the-table funding from sympathetic parties in the NR.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

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Let's face it, without the new EU, the New Republic comes off as such a paper tiger that the Original trilogy Trio didn't seem to do much in the intervening 30 years when it comes to rebuilding.

With the new EU, Leia sided with the people who made it into that paper tiger because she feared centralization of the galactic government.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

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FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-11-30 01:56am Let's face it, without the new EU, the New Republic comes off as such a paper tiger that the Original trilogy Trio didn't seem to do much in the intervening 30 years when it comes to rebuilding.

With the new EU, Leia sided with the people who made it into that paper tiger because she feared centralization of the galactic government.
A mistake in hindsight, perhaps, but a very understandable one given the historical context in which they were trying to build the NR.

I mean, when did well-meaning but imperfect characters making imperfect decisions become a sign of bad writing? When did "Everyone is an avatar of PRAGMATISM" become the defining quality of good characterization?

As to what the OT trio were doing... well, going off the films, Luke set up a new Jedi Order, until Kylo murdered it. Leia tried for peace, and when that failed had a change of heart and started leading a covert resistance group. The only one who we don't really see having done much to try to make the galaxy a better place is Han. I wonder what he did during the early years of the NR, before Ben fell.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-11-30 02:00am
FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-11-30 01:56am Let's face it, without the new EU, the New Republic comes off as such a paper tiger that the Original trilogy Trio didn't seem to do much in the intervening 30 years when it comes to rebuilding.

With the new EU, Leia sided with the people who made it into that paper tiger because she feared centralization of the galactic government.
A mistake in hindsight, perhaps, but a very understandable one given the historical context in which they were trying to build the NR.

I mean, when did well-meaning but imperfect characters making imperfect decisions become a sign of bad writing? When did "Everyone is an avatar of PRAGMATISM" become the defining quality of good characterization?

As to what the OT trio were doing... well, going off the films, Luke set up a new Jedi Order, until Kylo murdered it. Leia tried for peace, and when that failed had a change of heart and started leading a covert resistance group. The only one who we don't really see having done much to try to make the galaxy a better place is Han. I wonder what he did during the early years of the NR, before Ben fell.
No, people are fine with people failing being part of drama, if that's the center of the drama. It being used as a fig leaf justification to shut up and not question why the events of this film are happening is another.

Imagine an ST trilogy of Leia dealing with the fall of the New Republic. That would be compelling stuff. Instead, Six solar systems are destroyed, and that's it, Leia was just lucky she was in another system at the time. And that's all we hear of them.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by The Romulan Republic »

FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-11-30 02:13am
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-11-30 02:00am
FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-11-30 01:56am Let's face it, without the new EU, the New Republic comes off as such a paper tiger that the Original trilogy Trio didn't seem to do much in the intervening 30 years when it comes to rebuilding.

With the new EU, Leia sided with the people who made it into that paper tiger because she feared centralization of the galactic government.
A mistake in hindsight, perhaps, but a very understandable one given the historical context in which they were trying to build the NR.

I mean, when did well-meaning but imperfect characters making imperfect decisions become a sign of bad writing? When did "Everyone is an avatar of PRAGMATISM" become the defining quality of good characterization?

As to what the OT trio were doing... well, going off the films, Luke set up a new Jedi Order, until Kylo murdered it. Leia tried for peace, and when that failed had a change of heart and started leading a covert resistance group. The only one who we don't really see having done much to try to make the galaxy a better place is Han. I wonder what he did during the early years of the NR, before Ben fell.
No, people are fine with people failing being part of drama, if that's the center of the drama. It being used as a fig leaf justification to shut up and not question why the events of this film are happening is another.
:roll:

No one is saying you have to "shut up". How about you stop playing the victim, and actually explain why you feel the reasons I gave for the NR's collapse do or do not make sense as an explanation for the events of the film?

I don't even disagree that it should have been shown in more detail on-screen. But at the same time, there's nothing about the situation depicted that can't be made sense of, from what we see on screen.

I'll also point out that its not really fair to criticize the films based on stuff that some EU writer came up with after the fact (like Leia pushing the disarmament of the NR). That's like saying RotJ is a shitty film because Palpatine didn't actually die because some idiot wrote Dark Empire years later.
Imagine an ST trilogy of Leia dealing with the fall of the New Republic. That would be compelling stuff. Instead, Six solar systems are destroyed, and that's it, Leia was just lucky she was in another system at the time. And that's all we hear of them.
IIRC, there were actually additional NR scenes that were shot, but then cut. Blame that on the people who whined about all the "boring" politics ruining the Prequels.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-11-30 02:51am :roll:

No one is saying you have to "shut up". How about you stop playing the victim, and actually explain why you feel the reasons I gave for the NR's collapse do or do not make sense as an explanation for the events of the film?

I don't even disagree that it should have been shown in more detail on-screen. But at the same time, there's nothing about the situation depicted that can't be made sense of, from what we see on screen.

I'll also point out that its not really fair to criticize the films based on stuff that some EU writer came up with after the fact (like Leia pushing the disarmament of the NR). That's like saying RotJ is a shitty film because Palpatine didn't actually die because some idiot wrote Dark Empire years later.
Because audiences are willing to buy that the main characters, their protagonists, screw up. As long as they are witness to that in some way. Having the film say, "Our heroes really let things go to pot, trust us on that.", is not a good way to build a relationship with the audience and their trust over how they're handling the characters. Especially when it contrasts with the direction the previous movie was seeming to say about the direction of the galaxy.

It's a massive case of how in movies and television, "Show, don't tell." is very important. People need to know what is happening, and seeing it is better than having it described. The new Star Wars trilogy kinda gives us that. In that we know there's a New Republic, it's been destroyed, and for some reason, our heroes were sleeping on the job for the past 30 years and let what seems like a giant empire emerge again. (We know it's not that because of the EU, and is equivalent to North Korea, but Joe Schmo at the theater has no idea). Another one is, "Context is king". You can do a "In Media Res" plot, as long as you explain things enough later on to justify why everything is happening, and make sure that we're not missing the juicy stuff for what you decided to show. It lets us know the stakes, why things are going on, and why these character's actions are important.

Sure, we can't, due to the age of the actors, follow what happened on-screen from Return of the Jedi to Episode VII. (Well, maybe we could, their de-aging special effects are getting quite good). But we need to have the equivalent of the scene with Tarkin in the conference room, informing others what's going on, and why the Death Star is important. The new trilogy really doesn't have that, because JJ Abrams is too fond of the mystery box and hates world building, while Rian Johnson wanted to deconstruct Star Wars and not build on it, aside to say that there's a casino planet with child slaves on it, which seemed to carry on business as usual during the heroes' watch.

But, the most important thing is, are we telling the most crucial story we can tell right now? We could be seeing a story about people too desperate for peace that they give up the will to fight, rising fascism happening again in the Star Wars galaxy, Luke, Leia, and Han at odds due to how the government they've built isn't meeting their expectations, or anyone of a few things. Instead, we're getting A New Hope 3.0, in order to have it feel like Star Wars.

In order to do this, the plot was bent out of shape to have big strong bad guys vs small good guys again, which was just confusing, because that didn't seem to be the direction ROTJ was hinting at. And we can't even have that, due to death of Snoke and Phasma and lack of credible villains on the bad guy side. So we're instead seeing, as you said, the equivalent of North Korea taking over the world while being run by the Three Stooges. Or, if we're being charitable, the good guys winning, and then bravely clutching defeat on the very eve of victory for the next three decades. And the only thing we can draw from this is that it seems to be their own fault.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-11-30 02:51am [...]
I'll also point out that its not really fair to criticize the films based on stuff that some EU writer came up with after the fact (like Leia pushing the disarmament of the NR).
[...]
Leia was opposing the disarmament.
It was Mon Mothma that pushed for it because she wanted to disuade any notions of the New Republic being an Empire 2.0 that enforces their power with military might.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

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The Romulan Republic wrote:In other words, "I don't like it, therefore I can't imagine any explanation other than that he was forced to recant. SECRETLY he must agree with me!"
It's not a secret dude, he talks about it openly in multiple interviews:
Mark Hamill wrote:I was shocked. I said to Rian, number one, Luke was the most optimistic, hopeful character, and now he’s this miserable, despondent hermit..

You see in the story why that is, but I had a real problem, because I don’t believe a Jedi would ever give up. You see, if he makes a mistake, he doubles down and does the right thing, regardless of the magnitude of his mistake — choosing Ben Solo and being so wrong and giving rise to the possible Darth Vader.
So on one hand you have multiple interviews where he goes into detail about what he disliked about the movie and Luke's character and on the other you have a generalized statement about what a good movie it was clearly made to attempt to calm things down after fan backlash which on occasion truly was way out of proportion.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-11-30 01:02am
Why? Because it doesn't validate your personal feelings?
I was going to pick it apart, but I came to a realization while typing: this might be total passive-aggression. All the things he enumerated as great can easily be applied to the least popular parts of the film. Challenging -- the whole "war is business" thing. Humor -- way too much of it, it's becoming like the Avengers. Surprising -- too many too count.

Hell, even to me I sound like a conspiracy theorist. I don't much care what Hamill has to say. It sounds like bullshit to me, but if it doesn't to you, that's fine. It was a shit movie. I don't need Hamill to tell me that, and everyone who thinks it was good is too entrenched in their positions to have thir minds changed by what he has to say.
Who's side are you arguing? If the First Order is a military state, then it is even more ridiculous that the New Republic was completely disarmed. This isn't a matter of "hard decisions," it's common sense. Depose an authoritarian, militarist regime, and finish the fucking job before you recycle all of your guns, or hold on to the God damn guns.
You could say that the Union should have kept massive garrisons in the South far longer after the US Civil War. And you'd be right. Didn't mean it was a politically-viable thing to do.
The Union didn't leave the South totally unoccupied, free to rebuild its military and produce WMDs while it completely gutted its own military. While the two are roughly analogous, the similarity breaks down on closer inspection.
Heck, in the real world today a lot of people would argue that the US should massively cut its military spending, despite the fact that it has several often hostile nuclear-armed rivals, at least one of which (NK) is arguably every bit as extreme as the First Order. Its easy to say in a fictional setting the the NR should just go in guns blazing and "finish the job"... but if you tried to make that argument in the real world in any number of situations, it would be a much harder sell.
Well, most obviously, Star Wars is a massively stylized space opera, and shouldn't necessarily be held to the political standards of our world. But, of course, that has other implications. So we'll discount that.

North Korea could not challenge the US in a fight. It's arguable that even a first strike scenario with nuclear weapons could be averted. The time to finish the job was in 1953. The US should have unified Korea and destroyed its enemy. Regardless, it's a different political scenario. Star Wars was under a single, centralized government for twenty millenia before it broke apart in civil war. The NR has a precedent in that the two were once one, so in that respect it is similar to your earlier Civil War example.

But I miss my point. Earlier, you were complaining about how the heroes were always the "hard men who make hard decisions." But what you're saying here is that it WAS a hard decision, and the right one, but it wasn't what all the people wanted, so weak people made the easy decision. Pick a side.
In any case, the NR didn't completely disarm. Or did I just imagine the dozens of capital ships floating around Hosnia before the FO blew it up? Heck, where do you think the Resistance was getting their ships from? Presumably, under-the-table funding from sympathetic parties in the NR.
Huh. I suppose I imagined the dozens of Rebel capital ships floating around in ROTJ, since they were a insurgent state that had no funding from anyone, and therefore surely could not have amassed such a force.

If the NR has warships, why in the name of God are the floating around when there is the First Order to fight? It once more raises the question of why the NR plays such a tiny role. The answer: because the writers of the ST don't care about worldbuilding, they just want to do Star Wars again and bigger.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

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KraytKing wrote: 2018-11-30 12:02pmI was going to pick it apart, but I came to a realization while typing: this might be total passive-aggression. All the things he enumerated as great can easily be applied to the least popular parts of the film. Challenging -- the whole "war is business" thing. Humor -- way too much of it, it's becoming like the Avengers. Surprising -- too many too count.
Or maybe he had a genuine change of heart at some point? As I said, actors often clash with directors. Sometimes it gets smoothed over, and everyone is satisfied with the final product. Sometimes it doesn't. Sure, there's no way to know for sure what Hamill thinks, because we're not Jedi and can't read peoples' emotions with the Force- but that doesn't change the fact that people are basically assuming/insisting that Hamill was telling the truth only when he said what they want to hear. Which is frankly insulting to Hamill.
Hell, even to me I sound like a conspiracy theorist. I don't much care what Hamill has to say. It sounds like bullshit to me, but if it doesn't to you, that's fine. It was a shit movie. I don't need Hamill to tell me that, and everyone who thinks it was good is too entrenched in their positions to have thir minds changed by what he has to say.
It seems awfully arrogant and hypocritical of you to say effectively that anyone who disagrees with you is just narrow-minded and stubborn.
The Union didn't leave the South totally unoccupied, free to rebuild its military and produce WMDs while it completely gutted its own military. While the two are roughly analogous, the similarity breaks down on closer inspection.
No, the Union did something worse- it welcomed the old guard of Southern politics back into the highest levels of the national power structure with open arms. What happened post-Civil War was like if the NR had, twenty years or so after Endor, welcomed the Galactic Empire back into its government with open arms.
Well, most obviously, Star Wars is a massively stylized space opera, and shouldn't necessarily be held to the political standards of our world. But, of course, that has other implications. So we'll discount that.
Well, we kind of have to. Because if the argument is "its stylized space opera, so it doesn't need to make sense", analyzing it is pointless and this whole conversation might as well end.
North Korea could not challenge the US in a fight. It's arguable that even a first strike scenario with nuclear weapons could be averted. The time to finish the job was in 1953. The US should have unified Korea and destroyed its enemy. Regardless, it's a different political scenario. Star Wars was under a single, centralized government for twenty millenia before it broke apart in civil war. The NR has a precedent in that the two were once one, so in that respect it is similar to your earlier Civil War example.
True, and that just underscores the difficulty of convincing a war weary public who fears authoritarian overreach to continue supporting further war- even if it's in their best interest long-term to do so.
But I miss my point. Earlier, you were complaining about how the heroes were always the "hard men who make hard decisions." But what you're saying here is that it WAS a hard decision, and the right one, but it wasn't what all the people wanted, so weak people made the easy decision. Pick a side.
Hmm.

Fighting the Empire/FO to the bitter end might have been the theoretical "right" decision to make, with the benefit of hindsight. But real people aren't tactical computers, nor should they be. And nor should fictional characters, for the most part.
Huh. I suppose I imagined the dozens of Rebel capital ships floating around in ROTJ, since they were a insurgent state that had no funding from anyone, and therefore surely could not have amassed such a force.
My point is that the NR had a major capital ship fleet (and probably a lot more ships in other systems we didn't see, realistically). Ergo, it did not fully disarm.
If the NR has warships, why in the name of God are the floating around when there is the First Order to fight? It once more raises the question of why the NR plays such a tiny role. The answer: because the writers of the ST don't care about worldbuilding, they just want to do Star Wars again and bigger.
Why does any country hesitate to go to war? Because the political will/public support to do it isn't there.

The NR should have played a larger role, but again: blame the Prequel bashers. They whined about the "boring politics". They got what they wanted. It sucked. Now they whine about the sainted OT heroes being people instead of tactical computers. I'm sure the next trilogy will be nothing but an endless parade of HARD MAN PRAGMATISTS. And it will suck.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by Crazedwraith »

What you think the next trilogy will suck? You are not going to treat us to the lecture on how you will give it a fair try because you are an enlightened individual unafraid of reboots, resets and sequels unlike the rest of us boors?

Man, you've changed! I guess the speech berating people for not liking the prequels has a higher priority.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by Vympel »

FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-11-27 07:14pm So, we're supposed to have read some comic to know what the hell the story behind the map is? Because without it, it's easy to assume that Luke left it, especially as R2 has a key piece and they're all waiting for R2 to wake up and show the last piece of the puzzle. The implication is that Luke, for whatever reason, left a map on how to find him. Otherwise, why does R2 contain the last piece of the puzzle? Why did Luke give it to R2? Just for shits and giggles?
No? It's obvious in the movie that the map is a map to the first Jedi temple, which is where Luke is rumored to be. It's not the movie's fault that you went through a convoluted and speculative chain of supposition to surmise that Luke must've left a map. The movie never says that, nor does it imply it. Kylo Ren tells Rey that they have their own part of the map (equivalent to R2's) which they got from the old Imperial archives. Did Luke leave that behind, too? Of course not.
Probably because Han is supposed to be wrong about Luke's intentions, as it goes against his character.
At no stage does anyone, anywhere, state or imply that Han is wrong about why Luke disappeared. I mean ffs, it's so goddamn stupid. Episode VII told the audience everything they needed to know about what Luke would be like in Episode VIII. To believe otherwise you'd have to believe Luke is a deliberately obtuse dumbshit who left obscure clues behind like some sort of incompetent Intergalactic Carmen San Diego to make everything needlessly difficult for his friends and allies, who he abandoned without a word despite it aapparently "going againt his character".

And to do what? Sit on an island waiting for a student to show up for him to train? Become Super Strong in the Force so he can come back and defeat the Bad Guys? Villains are the people in Star Wars who obsess and brag about the growth of their mighty powers.
And shows how far Han has gone down since he's abandoned the Rebellion/Resistance and being a father? Or is character assassination of the original trio supposed to be the theme of the Original Trilogy?
What the hell does your problems with Han's characterisation have to do with him being wrong about utterly critical information about why Luke disappeared?

Literally none of Episode VII's core premise makes sense if you think Luke was off being heroically isolated. It's stupid as shit if you were to actually think about it for more than a minute.

"I must go to the First Jedi Temple and Be Awesome. Now, all I need to do is tell no one exactly where I've gone or why and make them go on a convoluted years-long hunt for clues that will lead them to my location. This will ensure that if I'm needed no one will be able to find me quickly, and also put my life in danger on the off chance that the First Order will get wind of this and find me first. Truly, this is a brilliant plan."
Then it's as important as the New Republic, a minor plot detail that was needlessly forgotten and served no purpose.
That's totally something you can confidently declare 2 movies into a 3 movie series.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by Lord Revan »

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the point with New Republic's post civil war policies that they didn't see the First Order as serious threat and mostly disarmed because it (they had ships, we saw the in Hosian Prime) and not that the republic saw perfectly what the First Order was but disarmed because they were bunch cowards and idiots who would rather loose everything then fight?

If the First Order hid most of their strenght, it would go a long way in explaining why keeping a strong military was seen as being empire 2.0 and because that the New Republic disarmed.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

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Lord Revan wrote: 2018-12-01 11:25am Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the point with New Republic's post civil war policies that they didn't see the First Order as serious threat and mostly disarmed because it (they had ships, we saw the in Hosian Prime) and not that the republic saw perfectly what the First Order was but disarmed because they were bunch cowards and idiots who would rather loose everything then fight?

If the First Order hid most of their strenght, it would go a long way in explaining why keeping a strong military was seen as being empire 2.0 and because that the New Republic disarmed.
How can we say anything about post civil war politics of the NR because they existed in the movie for the first opening minutes then went "kk thanksbye"? Even if NR went with disarmament, they would have had a huge fuckton of weapons to disarm left over from the Empire and there's a huge difference between scrapping surplus ISDs so they don't end up being bought by every backwater dictatorship and basically saying we don't need a standing army because... LOOOVVEEE!!

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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Gunhead wrote: 2018-12-01 12:56pm
Lord Revan wrote: 2018-12-01 11:25am Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the point with New Republic's post civil war policies that they didn't see the First Order as serious threat and mostly disarmed because it (they had ships, we saw the in Hosian Prime) and not that the republic saw perfectly what the First Order was but disarmed because they were bunch cowards and idiots who would rather loose everything then fight?

If the First Order hid most of their strenght, it would go a long way in explaining why keeping a strong military was seen as being empire 2.0 and because that the New Republic disarmed.
How can we say anything about post civil war politics of the NR because they existed in the movie for the first opening minutes then went "kk thanksbye"? Even if NR went with disarmament, they would have had a huge fuckton of weapons to disarm left over from the Empire and there's a huge difference between scrapping surplus ISDs so they don't end up being bought by every backwater dictatorship and basically saying we don't need a standing army because... LOOOVVEEE!!

-Gunhead
I'd portray it more like "We don't need a standing army because we need to show a war-weary public and people who are afraid that we're a new Galactic Empire that we're different." Also, the Old Republic they were emulating had no standing army, and when it got one, that was the beginning of the end, and that army ended up being used to enact Order 66 and make Palpatine Emperor. So with that history, it makes sense.

Think of Articles of Confederation America- dysfunctional in the extreme, but it was so by design because the Founders had just overthrown one tyrant, and feared a strong central government. The US was fortunate in that it got that shit sorted out before it faced an external enemy capable of and willing to destroy it. The NR wasn't so fortunate.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by Gandalf »

FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-11-30 03:47amIn order to do this, the plot was bent out of shape to have big strong bad guys vs small good guys again, which was just confusing, because that didn't seem to be the direction ROTJ was hinting at. And we can't even have that, due to death of Snoke and Phasma and lack of credible villains on the bad guy side. So we're instead seeing, as you said, the equivalent of North Korea taking over the world while being run by the Three Stooges. Or, if we're being charitable, the good guys winning, and then bravely clutching defeat on the very eve of victory for the next three decades. And the only thing we can draw from this is that it seems to be their own fault.
At what direction was ROTJ hinting?
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Gandalf wrote: 2018-12-01 04:26pm
FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-11-30 03:47amIn order to do this, the plot was bent out of shape to have big strong bad guys vs small good guys again, which was just confusing, because that didn't seem to be the direction ROTJ was hinting at. And we can't even have that, due to death of Snoke and Phasma and lack of credible villains on the bad guy side. So we're instead seeing, as you said, the equivalent of North Korea taking over the world while being run by the Three Stooges. Or, if we're being charitable, the good guys winning, and then bravely clutching defeat on the very eve of victory for the next three decades. And the only thing we can draw from this is that it seems to be their own fault.
At what direction was ROTJ hinting?
The end of RotJ is pretty much a "happily ever after" ending- which is obviously going to be somewhat left behind for the story to continue at all. That said, a few things can be taken as heavily foreshadowed/set-up by it:

1. The Empire is gone. This is not directly contradicted by the ST, though it could be said that the First Order is the Empire in all but name (I've said before that I would have had the galaxy Balkanize into many small states post Endor, and explored the political ramifications of that- I feel such a division is vaguely implied by TFA, but the political situation is not really explored).

2. Luke will train more Jedi, at minimum Leia. Confirmed by the ST, even if we don't see much of it and it ultimately ended badly. What's not clear is the extent to which Leia was personally trained by him, which is a shame, though her Force spaceflight feat in TLJ suggests that she did receive some training post-RotJ.

3. Han and Leia get together. Obviously happened, though again it all took place mostly off-screen, between the trilogies.

I can see where there's cause for frustration there, and a sense that the ST contradicted the OT's ending, even though it really didn't. Because the stuff that we all expected to follow from the OT mostly happened off-screen between the trilogies, and is pretty much over and done with by the time the ST starts, so we can reset things to the galaxy being at war again. Which is made even worse by it being such a clear reset to the situation at the start of the OT- it gives the impression that the Rebellion's victory was pointless, even though it did topple the Empire and buy the galaxy decades of peace (just offscreen). And as a fan, one of my big gripes about the ST is that we never got a Han/Leia/Luke reunion on-screen (seriously, they spend that much time on OT fan service in Force Awakens, and they couldn't give us the most basic piece of OT fan service?).

I disagree that this is all the fault of the OT heroes though. What we see is the unpleasant reality that history does not stop when the heroes win a victory. They won. They had a few decades of mostly peace. And then the wheel kept turning. The only one of the big three who really has any fault in causing the rise of the FO is Luke, and even that was down to a single instant of poor judgement at the worst possible time and place. The blame is mostly on Kylo, Snoke, and perhaps the NR government as a whole. And, ultimately, on Palpatine. The NR is undoubtably so dysfunctional because it's trying to rebuild society on the rubble of the 1,000 year old peaceful galactic government which Palpatine destroyed.

I do think it would help if we saw some sign that the OT heroes left some kind of lasting positive legacy, though- to show that even though history continued, they were a tangible part of creating whatever comes next in some more direct and obvious way. TLJ closed the door on two of the obvious ways of doing so, by having Rey not possess any family connection to the heroes and by having Luke not really train her to any great extent. I've also made my feelings on a Kylo redemption quite clear. But I see a few other options:

1. Have Force ghost Luke act as a mentor to Rey.

2. Have Leia lay the groundwork for a new galactic government in Episode IX (granted, this is hard to do with Fisher's death). Or have Leia's mentorship of Poe be key to Poe's future leadership of the NR.

3. Have at least one of Luke's students actually turn out not evil. If a Kylo redemption is no longer in the cards, and IX brings in the Knights of Ren, have them be the other students of Luke's who fell and joined Kylo, and have Rey redeem one of them. Have one of Luke's students be key to bringing down the First Order. That way, Luke's Order will actually have contributed something lasting to the universe besides suffering and death and failure.

Or, hell, all of the above.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by Lord Insanity »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-12-01 04:48pm 1. The Empire is gone. This is not directly contradicted by the ST, though it could be said that the First Order is the Empire in all but name (I've said before that I would have had the galaxy Balkanize into many small states post Endor, and explored the political ramifications of that- I feel such a division is vaguely implied by TFA, but the political situation is not really explored).
That would have made for a much more interesting idea than the creatively bankrupt "reset button" to Empire First Order vs Rebels Resistence we actually got. I still think it is hilarious that Rogue One and Solo were far more locked into what they could and couldn't do and yet managed to be way more fresh and original than the actual Sequel movies.


I have two things I think would immediately improve Episode IX.

The first being highly unlikely to actually happen would be Luke, looking similar to how he was in the flashbacks of TLJ, opens his eyes from meditation and comments out loud: "Well that would be stupid as hell." He then proceeds to NOT ignite his lightsaber over his nephew. Instead Luke goes after Snoke for trying to get his nephew and Luke is killed. Ben goes on a quest to Jakku to find the "chosen one" to avenge his Uncle. He ultimately gets jealous of her power and falls to the dark side. We now mostly have the same setup as before without making characters go completely against their established traits. :roll:

More realistically I think it would be really nice to actually see that the above "balkanization" has in fact occurred and the New Republic and First Order are two tiny fish in a large ocean. The Falcon comes out of hyperspace before a large fleet. A message is broadcast: "This is the 237th Coruscant Sectors Republic fleet identify yourselves immediately." A far more interesting Star Wars movie than the last two follows.

Edit: Typo
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by FaxModem1 »

Vympel wrote: 2018-12-01 10:52am
FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-11-27 07:14pm So, we're supposed to have read some comic to know what the hell the story behind the map is? Because without it, it's easy to assume that Luke left it, especially as R2 has a key piece and they're all waiting for R2 to wake up and show the last piece of the puzzle. The implication is that Luke, for whatever reason, left a map on how to find him. Otherwise, why does R2 contain the last piece of the puzzle? Why did Luke give it to R2? Just for shits and giggles?
No? It's obvious in the movie that the map is a map to the first Jedi temple, which is where Luke is rumored to be. It's not the movie's fault that you went through a convoluted and speculative chain of supposition to surmise that Luke must've left a map. The movie never says that, nor does it imply it. Kylo Ren tells Rey that they have their own part of the map (equivalent to R2's) which they got from the old Imperial archives. Did Luke leave that behind, too? Of course not.
So, why is R2 holding onto the rest of the map, waiting like a pet puppy dog for someone to get the rest of the pieces? Do all Imperial Archives instruct droids to shut down until presented with the rest of the map?
Probably because Han is supposed to be wrong about Luke's intentions, as it goes against his character.
At no stage does anyone, anywhere, state or imply that Han is wrong about why Luke disappeared. I mean ffs, it's so goddamn stupid. Episode VII told the audience everything they needed to know about what Luke would be like in Episode VIII. To believe otherwise you'd have to believe Luke is a deliberately obtuse dumbshit who left obscure clues behind like some sort of incompetent Intergalactic Carmen San Diego to make everything needlessly difficult for his friends and allies, who he abandoned without a word despite it aapparently "going againt his character".

And to do what? Sit on an island waiting for a student to show up for him to train? Become Super Strong in the Force so he can come back and defeat the Bad Guys? Villains are the people in Star Wars who obsess and brag about the growth of their mighty powers.
So, I guess Luke did nothing in-between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi then, because training to become better after a defeat is so un-Jedi like. Especially if he's going to the original Jedi temple, what other possible reason could he want to go there besides to drink space-cow milk and go fishing? It's totally unreasonable of the audience to expect he went there to train to become better or to master some new skill or art in the force. :roll:
And shows how far Han has gone down since he's abandoned the Rebellion/Resistance and being a father? Or is character assassination of the original trio supposed to be the theme of the Original Trilogy?
What the hell does your problems with Han's characterisation have to do with him being wrong about utterly critical information about why Luke disappeared?

Literally none of Episode VII's core premise makes sense if you think Luke was off being heroically isolated. It's stupid as shit if you were to actually think about it for more than a minute.

"I must go to the First Jedi Temple and Be Awesome. Now, all I need to do is tell no one exactly where I've gone or why and make them go on a convoluted years-long hunt for clues that will lead them to my location. This will ensure that if I'm needed no one will be able to find me quickly, and also put my life in danger on the off chance that the First Order will get wind of this and find me first. Truly, this is a brilliant plan."
Or, you know, he's there to hide while he becomes better at something, or to not upset the apple cart until the opportune moment, or some other reason besides he's become a bitter old man who wastes his time walking around an island for no purpose whatsoever except to wait for death?
Then it's as important as the New Republic, a minor plot detail that was needlessly forgotten and served no purpose.
That's totally something you can confidently declare 2 movies into a 3 movie series.
We'll see. Who knows?
Gandalf wrote: 2018-12-01 04:26pm
FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-11-30 03:47amIn order to do this, the plot was bent out of shape to have big strong bad guys vs small good guys again, which was just confusing, because that didn't seem to be the direction ROTJ was hinting at. And we can't even have that, due to death of Snoke and Phasma and lack of credible villains on the bad guy side. So we're instead seeing, as you said, the equivalent of North Korea taking over the world while being run by the Three Stooges. Or, if we're being charitable, the good guys winning, and then bravely clutching defeat on the very eve of victory for the next three decades. And the only thing we can draw from this is that it seems to be their own fault.
At what direction was ROTJ hinting?
Pretty much what TRR said. With the special edition celebrations on multiple planets ending, it looked like the Empire was about to be on it's last legs due to either lack of popular support or lack of credible leadership, as Luke, Leia, and Han had defeated the leadership of the Empire and a sizable chunk of their military.

It was assumed that Luke would probably become some sort of Jedi teacher, Leia a political leader in whatever new government was coming, and Han's direction was more open, but would probably be on the side of the good guys, rather than being on the run again from people he owed money.
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Re: Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

Post by Vympel »

FaxModem1 wrote: 2018-12-01 09:02pm So, why is R2 holding onto the rest of the map, waiting like a pet puppy dog for someone to get the rest of the pieces? Do all Imperial Archives instruct droids to shut down until presented with the rest of the map?
Because BB-8 talked to him:

https://ew.com/article/2015/12/20/jj-ab ... e-awakens/
So, I guess Luke did nothing in-between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi then, because training to become better after a defeat is so un-Jedi like. Especially if he's going to the original Jedi temple, what other possible reason could he want to go there besides to drink space-cow milk and go fishing? It's totally unreasonable of the audience to expect he went there to train to become better or to master some new skill or art in the force. :roll:
Why would you assume Luke 'trained' beteen ESB and ROTJ in any sort of significant way? Luke's 'training' was so unimportant to the story that ROTJ goes out of its way to confirm that Luke hasn't even been to see Yoda since the end of ESB. And Luke found out that the monster he was out to destroy was his father, you think he wanted to train to become better (so as to what, kill Vader?) after that?

Luke of the ST was never going to be some power-fantasy MCU character, just waiting to make some triumphant appearance in the film like Thor in Ragnarok or infinity War - which is what so many fans seemed to want. It's simply not Star Wars, and never was. This is a series that presents Luke's ultimate defeat of Vader not as a triumphant moment but as a tragedy that's about to damn his soul, and that which presents his greatest moment as the moment he tossed away his weapon.

And yes, its unreasonable. It requires you to believe the following things:

- Han is ignorant and/or a liar; and
- Luke is a fool who makes things massively difficult for his friends and family and deliberately places his life (and those of his friends) in danger for no good reason - banking on said friends going off on a wild goose chase to find him rather than simply telling him where he was.
Or, you know, he's there to hide while he becomes better at something, or to not upset the apple cart until the opportune moment, or some other reason besides he's become a bitter old man who wastes his time walking around an island for no purpose whatsoever except to wait for death?
Why does he need to hide? If he does need to hide, why does he need to keep that a secret from his friends? What 'apple cart' is he going to upset?
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