STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (HUGE SPOILERS EVERYWHERE)

Aren't these things kinda absent in the wider picture of Star Wars? Much more present than in other franchises, for sure, but IIRC Expanded SW had various tones of grey, and good doesn't always win.
Then again, "Legends" aren't canon and we got this shit instead.

 

Well, I recall that Palpatine was probably lying to Thrawn about unifying the galaxy to protect against threats beyond the galaxy to ensure Thrawn's loyalty and service. He obviously wouldn't care about protecting anyone, just amassing more power for himself.

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

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

Though her critique of the Jedi Order and the Sith during that era was spot on.

 

It's why I personally ignore TOR as a canonical entry.

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

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

 

If you were refering to me with that, I guess I did. I did catch that glimpse of the texts when I was watching the movie, so I knew they werent lost, but it took me a quick Internet search to find Yoda's exact phrasing and make the connection. When Yoda said it, I thought that he meant the texts were interesting reads but that they didnt contain anything useful for the situation at hand.

 

Actually based on canonical materials, Revan didn't fall for power, wealth and loyalty to Vitiate. Those materials stated that he and Malak got mentally dominated by Vitiate and only broke out of it after they left Sith space. While they were still following Vitiate's command to conquer the galaxy, Revan had other plans for said conquest. Namely, to conquer the galaxy in order to unite it against Vitiate's Sith Empire, if only to supplant Vitiate as the galaxy's new Emperor by defeating said Empire. I'll give credit to the official materials for that, it didn't write off Kreia's idea on why Revan did his conquests but mixed it in.

Malak though was a megalomaniac and an idiot who simply wanted to conquer the galaxy regardless of how many cities and resources he razes. He probably forgot about the Sith Emperor and probably would have squandered his domination if he did actually win.

 

Mine:

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

2. That's it.

The "good guys" are BORING. Sure they're nice and don't kill as many (assumedly) innocent people but that's where their appeal ends for me.

 

So what's the consensus?
Is this movie officially worse than infamous forty years old holiday special?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJDAmBQ1u2g

 

One of the many reasons why, being a woman, I do not feel comfortable posting on these forums!

 

Gotta love the people who are like "lol fuck the fanboys, SUBVEEERSIV!" I admit, having a shit structure is pretty subversive. Everyone who doesn't like it is obviously one of those babies with the petition to remove it from canon, duh! Fuck those nerds who theorized about what would be logically next more!

 

That would have been loads better than what we got. In fact, were the Knights of Ren even mentioned in this film?

Also, the name Ren. Any materials explaining the origin of that name?

 

These new Star Wars movies just get ALL THE EXCUSES for being shit, don't they? Does Disney lace the food for their movies with something? Where do they get this cult level devotion?

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

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

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