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Author Topic: Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi  (Read 248050 times)
eldaec
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Reply #315 on: December 21, 2017, 02:16:57 AM

Fair enough.

I found Snoke to be the best of a bad job within the first order. I can easily buy Snoke taking the reigns of a chunk of collapsing  empire.

But I struggled with Hux and Phasma's incompetence in particular, Kylo Ren you assume people follow out of pure fear.

Overall though I had much bigger problems with backstory in the Force Awakens, the lack of clarity around the new republic and what exactly is the post rotj status quo, meant nothing after Jakku made much sense to me. The opening crawl of TLJ at least clarified that by flat out stating that FO are the empire now.

The reason none of this stopped me enjoying the film is that I don't really think TLJ is about the first order, the new Republic, the resistance, or even about the GCW II. It is so focussed on 4 core characters plus Luke and Leia that the wider premise just didn't matter to me.


Star Wars world building has never been great and under Disney it hasn't improved. But hey, xwings and light sabres.

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Lakov_Sanite
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Reply #316 on: December 21, 2017, 03:01:26 AM

We should be clear. NOBODY liked Snoke. There's only two camps now, either it's people who care about his backstory or people that don't but that character was never well regarded.

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Khaldun
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Reply #317 on: December 21, 2017, 04:27:03 AM

I think this is a galaxy where using exclusively droid-manned attacks or otherwise automated attacks may be the equivalent of using poison gas---e.g., there's a very strong proscription against it because of the Clone Wars. That's actually the other major case of technological/tactical innovation we've seen in the series and there's pretty good reason to think that almost everyone came to the conclusion that it was a bad idea on multiple levels.

As for Snoke, Kylo Ren, Hux and the future of the First Order, I once heard a reporter who works exclusively on organized crime give a talk in Philadelphia. He was talking about where the mafia in the mid-Atlantic area was at these days, and he basically laid it out like this:

a) Back in the 1960s-1970s, they actually had a leadership that was genuinely a lot like what you see in The Godfather--very tied to family and to their Italian origins, actually pretty damn skilled at running a secret criminal corporation, and in their own way sort of ethical, including the prohibition on drug trafficking.

b) The Feds managed to get a lot of these guys, and also rising conflicts between the families led to a few dying.

c) The next generation were less careful, less skilled, and got busted quickly by the Feds or took each other out.

d) The next generation almost don't know how to run the organizations they've inherited, so what they're doing in a lot of cases is trying to act like mobsters based on what they've seen in the movies and TV--they literally watch The Godfather, Goodfellas and The Sopranos for guidance in how they're supposed to behave and what they're supposed to be doing. They still have a lot of resources, they're still involved in crime (including murder) but they're also poseurs and wannabes and kind of pathetic if you knew the old guys.

That already feels like Snoke, Hux and Kylo Ren: all in their way wannabees trying to put on boots that are too big for them. If that's the way they play the First Order in the next movie, I think that's great--that they have all the equipment, they've got the uniforms, but they also really don't know what they fuck they're doing and they're kind of cosplaying their way through it. In particular, they might not have any real administrations on any planets except for whatever they need to produce military materiel and supplies for their troops. A reason that might be especially great is if it leads to Hux, other FO military leaders and Kylo Ren being their own worst enemies, plotting against each other. *That* would be a different template for an IX: the Resistance builds a genuinely new moral and political order from the ground up and the FO gets consumed by its own insecurities and incompetence.
Draegan
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Reply #318 on: December 21, 2017, 05:13:52 AM

That also makes for a shitty movie.

You need a big bad. You need good to triumph over evil, at least in Star Wars act 3. Do we really want to match the main characters go on a political campaign  for help? I don't need another political main plot for star wars.

Kylo Ren and Hux aren't scary. The empire machine is just big and anonymous. The Galaxy consumed by greed is boring as a backdrop.

Can you really feel triumphant when our band of heros triumphs over incompetent and childish leaders? Maybe in a comedy.

I suspect a few things might happen:

1) they skip ahead in time x years and Leia passes away. Kylo becomes more menacing and Vader like (he gets a chair cut). And we get a good ole classic SW movie.

2) The first order flounders and a 3rd faction pops up.

3) Rey goes on a mystical journey, discovers ancient magic, builds a new lightsaber, comes back as force jesus. She brings Finn and maybe Poe along under the guise of searching for help for the resistance (tech or ancient aliens) in some unknown part of the Galaxy. Takes the fight to the empire.

It feels like this movie was an end, or the end of the first epsiode. So now we have a core group of heros, two who just met (Poe and Rey), they lost everything, and the big menace was killed. You have one movie to clean it up. They might have wrote themselves into a corner. This definitely doesn't feel like the end if act 2.

I have a feeling we'll get an ending there the resistance doesn't win and the empire doesn't win and they both collapse.

Then the next trilogy has a blank slate x years in the future to build on.
Khaldun
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Reply #319 on: December 21, 2017, 05:58:43 AM

The Empire was only scary for a brief moment in ESB, though, if you think about it. (And scary again in Rogue One here and there.)

Even in ESB and ANH, most of the officers were disposable--only Tarkin, Vader and maybe Piett and the dude who commanded the AT-ATs seem to have any ability at all. The stormtroopers can't hit a damn thing, famously so; most of the TIE pilots get outmaneuvered by Rebel pilots routinely. That's partly because until Rogue One they didn't really want to tell this as a story of asymmetrical warfare--a competent evil empire vs. an underground resistance--because that's a fairly ugly story and it doesn't involve plucky rebel pilots fighting openly against a force that's got a thousand times more resources and approximately equal skill.

By Return of the Jedi, the Empire is just openly silly, and if you buy even the implied backstory of what happens in between Endor and TFA, then they kind of fell apart simply because they relied on the evil leadership of a single person and didn't really have much else going for them. The fecklessness of Imperial officers and stormtroopers is the stuff of a thousand memes--the only thing that's implied that they were genuinely dangerous adversaries were their uniforms and ship designs and general aesthetics and the fact that they had two supervillains at the top of the org chart.

I think yeah, I can feel triumphant if our band of heroes builds something better and that the new moral order they build stands strongly against corruption, greed, cruelty and genocide, leaving evil to crumble within.

Look, there are really only a few ways to do the story of "underdogs v. evil empire":

a) The evil guys have a hidden MacGuffin vulnerability that when you take it out causes them to disintegrate. See: throwing the One Ring into Orodruin, stabbing the Cauldron-Born with Dyrnwyn, hitting the exhaust port of the Death Star with a torpedo, throwing the Emperor down a shaft after making him Force-lightning himself, etc. This is massively fucking overused in SW alone, and in popular culture generally.

b) The heroes win simply because they're pure of heart and every one of them has the strength and intelligence of a hundred of the evil guys, so they can stand toe-to-toe with them and slug it out. Sometimes the lead hero sacrifices himself effectively because he has the strength of a thousand of the evil guys, or a small squad of good guys sacrifice themselves to save the army of good guys. See: Gladiator, some war movies, Rogue One, lots of superhero stories, the conclusion of most James Bond movies.

c) The heroes win because they have one brilliant idea, often involving a MacGuffin, that leverages their miniscule relative strength just enough to defeat the evil empire--usually just for this episode, they'll be back next time. See Flash Gordon (old serials), Doctor Who

d) The heroes win because they're playing fifth-dimensional chess against a nearly equally-competent evil empire and they just play it slightly better. This is usually not an underdog v. evil empire template, really--it's more like Sherlock v. Moriarity, two nearly equal adversaries. It is really hard to tell this as a story of plucky underdogs vs. an evil empire because fifth-dimensional chess in this case usually means the stuff that's involved in asymmetrical warfare that is almost certainly morally ambiguous and not very suited for a good guy v. bad guy story. Sometimes works when it's just one person (Indiana Jones, etc.) than it is a rebel force.

e) The heroes win because they build up an alliance of previously neutral onlookers until they match the evil empire in strength. Flash Gordon often followed this template; it's used reasonably often in pulp adventure generally.

f) The heroes win because the evil empire has hidden and internal weaknesses that cause it to fall apart under pressure, often just when things seem darkest, maybe because it overreaches. The self-defeating bad guy who goes a bridge too far is a reasonably common trope in superhero comics--Stan Lee used it a bunch of times in early Marvel Comics, where a nearly all-powerful bad guy would be brought down because Reed Richard or Tony Stark would suddenly realize that feeding him all the power he wants would cause him to blow up or overload or freak out or die. It's also kind of the way evil empires in actual history tend to fall apart--they expand too much, or a competent ruler is replaced by a couple of corrupt doofuses.

e and f are maybe used less often because they're harder to pull off in a way that's exciting and pulpy, but there's nothing intrinsically unworkeable or dull about them. f) for example is often used to fuel a revenge-based rebels v. empire story, where the leader of the rebels is the rightful heir or a former servant of the empire back when it was competent. See: Robin Hood. They're also often a good way to get rid of the basic conflict of evil empire v. plucky rebellion and turn it to a more disorganized evil factions v. good factions template.


I think if IX ends with people in the galaxy deciding that it's best to not have any galactic-level governments or institutions--Jedi, Republic, Empire--then that clears the stage for some fun SW storytelling.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2017, 06:37:32 AM by Khaldun »
Draegan
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Reply #320 on: December 21, 2017, 07:08:53 AM

The Empire was scary because of competent seeming over commanders like Vader and the emporer. The rest that you describe is just story elements allowing a small band of heros to win against a huge empire machine.

Snoke is probably not even dead. He was probably just a force projection like Luke.
Draegan
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Reply #321 on: December 21, 2017, 07:09:28 AM

I'm on my phone or I would have responded more in-depth.
jgsugden
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Reply #322 on: December 21, 2017, 07:25:21 AM

The lesson for me: If you're doing a trilogy, have the same person create the outline, if not direct and/or write, the entire thing. This sticks a middle finger at what JJ began and said, "Nah, forget what you started. I'll sweep it out and replace it with my take."

JJ respected what came before him. His execution may have been flawed, but it respected what Lucas did in 4 to 6. Rian said, "I see the story elements and universe rules you dropped there. They don't interest me, so I'll write around them." That is what is at the core ofca lot of my complaints.

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Draegan
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Reply #323 on: December 21, 2017, 07:46:59 AM

Another theory that I can think of is balance in the force. Essentially we were told the force produces force users to balance each other.

In the day Jedi we're limited in their use of the force, or at least were held back for reasons. This made the Jedi pool wide but shallow and explained very powerful darkbusers but limited in numbers.

Now Skywalker and snoke are gone Which allows for more users to come about, hence the kid at the end.

New movie might see a rise of random force users going nutty. Kind of like an X-Men movie with rampant mutant discovery.
Threash
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Reply #324 on: December 21, 2017, 08:16:27 AM

With all the crabbing about tech and tactics, I'm surprised no one has complained about WWII style belly-drop bombers..... in 0 G (of if they did I missed it).

Anyone complaining about WWII space battles is simply watching the wrong movie series. It is a feature, not a bug.

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MediumHigh
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Reply #325 on: December 21, 2017, 08:22:38 AM

Another theory that I can think of is balance in the force. Essentially we were told the force produces force users to balance each other.

In the day Jedi we're limited in their use of the force, or at least were held back for reasons. This made the Jedi pool wide but shallow and explained very powerful darkbusers but limited in numbers.

Now Skywalker and snoke are gone Which allows for more users to come about, hence the kid at the end.

New movie might see a rise of random force users going nutty. Kind of like an X-Men movie with rampant mutant discovery.

This is why I hate these movies. Just confuses the cannon, you can not insert this crap into the past movies or the established lore.

Balance in the force simply means "destruction of the sith, light triumphing over evil". The rule of 2 sith were created as a reaction to the inherent flaws of the past sith orders. Large pools and shallow force users only good for blood crazed suicide runs and betrayal. Instead of waiting for one sith master so powerful that the rest of the sith fall inline, dearth bane killed the order and insisted that only 2 true students of the dark side need to exist in order to propel the sith and the dark side into the future. This line of reasoning eventually created Palptine and since the jedi hasn't fought the sith in a 1000 years they weren't expecting him. Or his tactics which were completely different from how the sith of old normally operate. Palptine was a perfection of the dark side, a process of 1000 of years of evolution which is why he succeeded.

On the other hands the jedi were at the height of their power during the prequels. Most of them were peace keepers (mostly due to not having to fight a serious war since the last sith uprising) but the vast majority of those considered knights and masters were scary motherfuckers. The force isn't a ying yan relationship where there is duality and parity. The force works against the dark side coming to power, and having to work through mortal agents, doesn't always do a good job. For example Anakin was born specifically to counter Palptine. The force says "this is this kids destiny, the jedi will face a darkness that will require space jesus, here is space jesus". Despite this fact or even partially due to this fact, operation space jesus was a colossal failure.

What the new triology is doing is turning the mythos into the xmen. Which would be fine, if you didn't call it star wars.
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Reply #326 on: December 21, 2017, 08:22:41 AM

Question for people who hate that the evil mastermind in a trilogy of films is never fleshed out beyond 'I'm an evil guy in a robe who appears in one film in a single scene as a hologram, and in just two scenes in the only other film I appear in'. Also for people who really hate trilogys where we don't see how the evil mastermind turned his right hand  man to evil...

Why is all of this OK for you in the OT?

They were better written, better filmed and better structured than both this movie and TFA. Also, the character of Vader and the Imperial leaders were much better portrayed than a sniveling ginger masochist and a whiny temper tantrum throwing douche.

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Reply #327 on: December 21, 2017, 08:28:43 AM

We should be clear. NOBODY liked Snoke. There's only two camps now, either it's people who care about his backstory or people that don't but that character was never well regarded.

Actually, given the scenes we have with Snoke in TLJ, I actually like the character - or safer to say, I'm INTRIGUED enough about the character to want to know more about him. During his scenes, I kept noticing the scars and the fucked up uneven eyes and was like "How did that happen? Is he a failed Emperor clone? Did someon really fuck his shit up with a light saber? Is he a Sith Lord?

Some of I think Rian Johnson's comments after hint that maybe he's not even a Sith Lord and that it doesn't matter. The fuck you say it doesn't matter. It abso-fucking-lutely DOES matter since his efforts as leader of the First Order and the guy who corrupted Ben Solo enough that Luke Skywalker thought "I'd better ginsu this little bitch in his sleep" are pretty integral to the main galaxy-wide (we think?) conflict depicted in the WARS part of Star Wars.

Shannow
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Reply #328 on: December 21, 2017, 08:29:43 AM

Hux is terrible, I think we can all agree on that. Dominic Gleason (sp?) is a good actor, this is not the role for him. Pick whatever accomplished English actor (aka someone who was on either GoT or in a Harry Potter) who's twenty years older and give him the role.

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Lakov_Sanite
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Reply #329 on: December 21, 2017, 08:31:11 AM


Balance in the force simply means "destruction of the sith, light triumphing over evil". The rule of 2 sith were created as a reaction to the inherent flaws of the past sith orders. Large pools and shallow force users only good for blood crazed suicide runs and betrayal. Instead of waiting for one sith master so powerful that the rest of the sith fall inline, dearth bane killed the order and insisted that only 2 true students of the dark side need to exist in order to propel the sith and the dark side into the future. This line of reasoning eventually created Palptine and since the jedi hasn't fought the sith in a 1000 years they weren't expecting him. Or his tactics which were completely different from how the sith of old normally operate. Palptine was a perfection of the dark side, a process of 1000 of years of evolution which is why he succeeded.


Where does this knowledge come from?

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Threash
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Reply #330 on: December 21, 2017, 09:47:04 AM

Hux is terrible, I think we can all agree on that. Dominic Gleason (sp?) is a good actor, this is not the role for him. Pick whatever accomplished English actor (aka someone who was on either GoT or in a Harry Potter) who's twenty years older and give him the role.

The guy who was commanding the ship that got blown up in the opening attack was perfect.

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BobtheSomething
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Reply #331 on: December 21, 2017, 09:50:20 AM

We should be clear. NOBODY liked Snoke. There's only two camps now, either it's people who care about his backstory or people that don't but that character was never well regarded.

I actually quite enjoyed him in TLJ (although I hated him in TFA).  As someone who no longer cared about the Star Wars continuity, I was able to go with the film and take it on its own merits, which is why I enjoyed it.  But don't think for a second that it's ok to base the core conflict of the movie on Snoke's actions (he turned Kylo irredeemably, or made Luke think he did) without showing the audience the actions or the relationship between him and Luke and Ben that created the entire basis for the new trilogy.  Yeah, the movie stuck to the storytelling essentials as they pertain to this one film, but comp,ethyl dropped the ball when it comes to the fact that this movie does not exist on its own and never could.

Plus, as much as I respect RJ for flipping JJ the massive bird by ignoring all his mystery boxes, the audience did spend years speculating on Snoke and buying product.  A little customer loyalty, even an offhand explanatory comment, could have salvaged their emotional and financial investment.
Draegan
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Reply #332 on: December 21, 2017, 09:55:09 AM

Or snoke isn't dead.
BobtheSomething
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Reply #333 on: December 21, 2017, 10:11:52 AM

Or snoke isn't dead.

But he's been Freeza'd!
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Reply #334 on: December 21, 2017, 10:17:26 AM

Or snoke isn't dead.

This movie in itself has given us nothing to think that Snoke might have survived that. Even the previous movies haven't so much given us a firm belief that someone can come back from the dead like that.

Threash
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Reply #335 on: December 21, 2017, 10:26:26 AM

Or snoke isn't dead.

This movie in itself has given us nothing to think that Snoke might have survived that. Even the previous movies haven't so much given us a firm belief that someone can come back from the dead like that.


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eldaec
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Reply #336 on: December 21, 2017, 10:51:00 AM

Or snoke isn't dead.

This movie in itself has given us nothing to think that Snoke might have survived that. Even the previous movies haven't so much given us a firm belief that someone can come back from the dead like that.

Have you heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise?

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eldaec
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Reply #337 on: December 21, 2017, 10:52:20 AM

But seriously Snoke is dead don't be ridiculous.

We've had two years of 'Rey is a Skywalker' and 'Finn is a jedi', lets not do that shit again.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
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Khaldun
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Reply #338 on: December 21, 2017, 10:54:09 AM

There is zero canon that resolves what "balance" means with respect to the Force. The Jedi were plainly wrong in their understanding of it when they thought a: it was a good thing if it happened and b: Anakin was the one who would bring balance. In fact, it's just more evidence for the Jedi-are-fucked-up bin, because the Jedi aren't running around in the time of The Phantom Menace thinking that there is something wrong with the Force or with their relationship to it. We have a vague intimation that Qui-Gon was on the philosophical outs with the Council; Count Dooku used to be a Jedi and now he's not, but until the Clone Wars starts they're all pretty chill about him leaving. That's about it as far as the Jedi worrying about the worms in their apple. They certainly don't think that the prophecy of "balance in the Force" means "there need to be Sith"--if that was the case, they wouldn't be calling Anakin the Chosen One, they'd be calling him the Cursed One, because they most emphatically do NOT welcome it when they run into an actual Sith.

Now, the Jedi can be wrong about that, but then that means that the Force itself, in some way, desires that there be an eternal contest between light and dark and is making moves to keep both sides in the game. The Tao doesn't have to manipulate reality to produce the Tao: it's intrinsic.

Luke in this film offers a different interpretation: the Force is not something to dam up and use as a resource. It's only in "balance" when it's flowing freely through all things--not just life but the nonliving. The light and dark in this respect are simply what exists naturally in people (and things: natural disasters and whatnot, after all). It's why he's come to his conclusion that it's a bad idea to recreate a highly disciplined order of Jedi, and it implies (Yoda seemingly agreeing at the end of the film) that the Jedi were in error to think that "light" comes from discipline and order and training. (Which also implies that they're making a big mistake to recruit people when they're kids.)  So in that way, Anakin AND Luke have brought balance to the Force--not by equalling out the dark and light sides, but by disbanding the Jedi and the Sith.

There's other ways you could probably work the idea that aren't ruled out by what's been on screen so far--that the Force should be used in a temperate or restrained way and that increasingly in the Old Republic era it was being used in more and more intense or concentrated ways; that a Force wielder should be in touch with light and dark (the whole "grey" thing). But I don't think we've seen an authoritative in-canon description of what the idea means by someone whose understanding of it is unimpeachable. The Jedi are clearly not trustworthy interpreters of the idea, and given what he's been through, maybe not Luke either.

I don't think we've ever heard also *who* exactly delivered the prophecy in the first place. All we know is that the late Old Republic Jedi are very familiar with the prophecy and very interested in it. It can't be that they think it's going to mean the destruction of the Sith, because until Darth Maul shows up, every single Jedi of that era is firmly convinced that the Sith are long gone.
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Reply #339 on: December 21, 2017, 10:56:10 AM

But seriously Snoke is dead don't be ridiculous.

We've had two years of 'Rey is a Skywalker' and 'Finn is a jedi', lets not do that shit again.

You have to keep in mind that there is no plan. Snoke is as dead as JJ feels he is, Rey might still be a Skywalker. All those things would be shitty of course, doesn't mean they can't happen.

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Reply #340 on: December 21, 2017, 10:59:38 AM


Balance in the force simply means "destruction of the sith, light triumphing over evil". The rule of 2 sith were created as a reaction to the inherent flaws of the past sith orders. Large pools and shallow force users only good for blood crazed suicide runs and betrayal. Instead of waiting for one sith master so powerful that the rest of the sith fall inline, dearth bane killed the order and insisted that only 2 true students of the dark side need to exist in order to propel the sith and the dark side into the future. This line of reasoning eventually created Palptine and since the jedi hasn't fought the sith in a 1000 years they weren't expecting him. Or his tactics which were completely different from how the sith of old normally operate. Palptine was a perfection of the dark side, a process of 1000 of years of evolution which is why he succeeded.


Where does this knowledge come from?


The fun thing about thr disney getting star wars is that everything published post episodr 6 was declared non-cannon but not everything pre episode 6. Which includes a lot of history.

In Episode 1 we know yoda and obiwan and mace windu discussed the rule of two when dearth maul died

In Episode 2 or 3 mace windu mentioned that the jedi and sith havent fought in 1000 years

This comment eventually led to ths old republic lore, which was further adapted by bioware for the old republoc games

In the lore, which goes back to the ousting of the datk jedi who will later become fhe sith, we get dearth bane

the same darth bane an entire episode of star wars the clone wars was devoted to when yoda was exploring an old sith tenple/relic. im fact the clone wars cartoon makes many many references to the 1000 year old old republic storylines.

In Episode 3 Darth Sidiou talks about his master and the fact that killed his master, confirming he is a product of the rule of two, which goes back to Darth Bane killing the old sith and establing the rule of 2.

As far as "nothing in the cannon tells what balance in the fourth is"

hm yes there is. Obi wan repeats what it is in the prequals and the original triology and George Lucas himself says the destruction of the sith and restoring light to the galaxy is balance in the force.

Because we're idiots we think there is a neccessary duality in the force because we are incapable of taking a black and white tail of good verses evil at face value.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2017, 11:15:15 AM by MediumHigh »
eldaec
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Reply #341 on: December 21, 2017, 11:07:05 AM

I'm always intrigued by the absurd interpretation that people put on yoda and obi wan's fireside chat about the rule of 2.

Sane viewers would interpret it as 'sith come in pairs' because only having 2 members at one time is plainly no basis for a sustainable religion.

Happily both clone wars and rebels have crapped all over this nonsense. Sith and jedi springing out of the woodwork all over the damn place.

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Goumindong
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Reply #342 on: December 21, 2017, 11:13:02 AM

We should be clear. NOBODY liked Snoke. There's only two camps now, either it's people who care about his backstory or people that don't but that character was never well regarded.

Actually, given the scenes we have with Snoke in TLJ, I actually like the character - or safer to say, I'm INTRIGUED enough about the character to want to know more about him. During his scenes, I kept noticing the scars and the fucked up uneven eyes and was like "How did that happen? Is he a failed Emperor clone? Did someon really fuck his shit up with a light saber? Is he a Sith Lord?

Some of I think Rian Johnson's comments after hint that maybe he's not even a Sith Lord and that it doesn't matter. The fuck you say it doesn't matter. It abso-fucking-lutely DOES matter since his efforts as leader of the First Order and the guy who corrupted Ben Solo enough that Luke Skywalker thought "I'd better ginsu this little bitch in his sleep" are pretty integral to the main galaxy-wide (we think?) conflict depicted in the WARS part of Star Wars.

It really doesn’t matter and explaining him will likely make it worse. Explaining things almost always makes them worse.  
Another theory that I can think of is balance in the force. Essentially we were told the force produces force users to balance each other.

In the day Jedi we're limited in their use of the force, or at least were held back for reasons. This made the Jedi pool wide but shallow and explained very powerful darkbusers but limited in numbers.

Now Skywalker and snoke are gone Which allows for more users to come about, hence the kid at the end.

New movie might see a rise of random force users going nutty. Kind of like an X-Men movie with rampant mutant discovery.

This is why I hate these movies. Just confuses the cannon, you can not insert this crap into the past movies or the established lore.

Balance in the force simply means "destruction of the sith, light triumphing over evil". The rule of 2 sith were created as a reaction to the inherent flaws of the past sith orders. Large pools and shallow force users only good for blood crazed suicide runs and betrayal. Instead of waiting for one sith master so powerful that the rest of the sith fall inline, dearth bane killed the order and insisted that only 2 true students of the dark side need to exist in order to propel the sith and the dark side into the future. This line of reasoning eventually created Palptine and since the jedi hasn't fought the sith in a 1000 years they weren't expecting him. Or his tactics which were completely different from how the sith of old normally operate. Palptine was a perfection of the dark side, a process of 1000 of years of evolution which is why he succeeded.

On the other hands the jedi were at the height of their power during the prequels. Most of them were peace keepers (mostly due to not having to fight a serious war since the last sith uprising) but the vast majority of those considered knights and masters were scary motherfuckers. The force isn't a ying yan relationship where there is duality and parity. The force works against the dark side coming to power, and having to work through mortal agents, doesn't always do a good job. For example Anakin was born specifically to counter Palptine. The force says "this is this kids destiny, the jedi will face a darkness that will require space jesus, here is space jesus". Despite this fact or even partially due to this fact, operation space jesus was a colossal failure.

What the new triology is doing is turning the mythos into the xmen. Which would be fine, if you didn't call it star wars.

No. The cannon has been pushing us towards this path for a long time now right from Yodas presence in ESB. The ambiguity of the force is probably the only actual consistent theme in the entire series with every character which lives making mistakes based on their rigidity and finding redemption in flexibility.

Re: the rule of two.

I always thought that Yoda was talking about practicality. It’s like “I found a moth in my closet don’t worry it’s only one”. No, there are always more
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Reply #343 on: December 21, 2017, 11:24:01 AM

One the rule of two and its orgins are very very cannon.
Two the force is not ambiguous. You are as the viewer isnt faced with an option that jells with who are as a person. Given two extreme options we desperately try to explain a middle ground where we can eat our cake and have it to. We do this politically given only two sides you find most people just pout and say both sides are bad instead of doing something. The only thing ambiguous is our natural tendency toward apathy.
Draegan
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Reply #344 on: December 21, 2017, 11:27:12 AM

Or snoke isn't dead.

This movie in itself has given us nothing to think that Snoke might have survived that. Even the previous movies haven't so much given us a firm belief that someone can come back from the dead like that.

Maybe he wwas a force projection like what Luke did in th final sequence.
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Reply #345 on: December 21, 2017, 11:31:03 AM

Or snoke isn't dead.

This movie in itself has given us nothing to think that Snoke might have survived that. Even the previous movies haven't so much given us a firm belief that someone can come back from the dead like that.

Maybe he wwas a force projection like what Luke did in th final sequence.

Sure, and after Luke did his Force projection he was dead... SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... still nothing in the movie that would say he could come back from the dead.

Draegan
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Reply #346 on: December 21, 2017, 11:33:12 AM

I didn't interpret his force projecting is what killed him. I think he just found peace and transended or whatever force ghosting is called.
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Reply #347 on: December 21, 2017, 11:49:44 AM

One the rule of two and its orgins are very very cannon.
Two the force is not ambiguous. You are as the viewer isnt faced with an option that jells with who are as a person. Given two extreme options we desperately try to explain a middle ground where we can eat our cake and have it to. We do this politically given only two sides you find most people just pout and say both sides are bad instead of doing something. The only thing ambiguous is our natural tendency toward apathy.

Uhh no. The only unambiguous force is in Star Wars where the light side and dark side are literally not explained at all. Where Anakin turning to the dark side is described as him "betraying and murdering another person". Lukes speech about the force surrounding and binding us is almost word for word from Alec Guinness in Star Wars. His speech about failure is pretty much straight from "jesus did you even watch the prequel trilogy?"
Lakov_Sanite
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Reply #348 on: December 21, 2017, 12:32:18 PM

They could wrap up Snoke very easily by next movie having Kylo discover several clone tubes with snokes inside them, all failed or attempts at rebuilding the emperor.  That's all the backstory Snoke would ever need and would also give the first order itself a bit more backstory, having been the empire all along, just with a makeover to likely get better/less defeated image.

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Khaldun
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Reply #349 on: December 21, 2017, 05:52:29 PM

Gonna be stubborn here. Lucas can say "balance" means "the destruction of the Sith" all he wants, but his own damn movie makes that obviously crap. The Jedi have zero idea that there are any Sith left anywhere until they meet Darth Maul. They think that shit ended a thousand years ago. And yet they're all familiar with the prophecy of the Chosen One, and they're all hot for it. Why, if they don't think there are any Sith around to worry about, and seemingly no other major threats to peace and prosperity?

More importantly, I have no idea why some fans want to reduce rather than multiply the number of possible interpretations and perspectives in something they love. That's been the whole point about Star Wars all along: it's a homage, sure, but it quickly left all of its pulp antecedents in the dust almost from the first second of the first film, because most of them were simple-minded and one-dimensional in seriously stupid ways.
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