4 hours ago, Frimmel said:

Well you weren't "protected" by The Empire though. There might have been more order but you were as likely to be ill-used by The Empire as pirates or hutts. A government isn't paying (in that someone is essentially a slave) for the sorts of resources that build monstrosities such as Death Stars or StarKiller Base.

Your judging by real life standards in the star wars galaxy slavery is not new or exclusive to the empire, it's part of the ryloth culture for example and has been for thousands of years.

What's better paying taxes or having family killed by aliens and your goods stolen?

Even evil organisations can benefit populations by their presence, but an organisation that cuts off contact can not.

On 6/6/2018 at 12:24 AM, BlodVargarna said:

So imagine the cost of a Death Star and how the Empire could have put those resources to actually help it’s citizens.

Based on the old canon, Palpative was almost fully justified in creating and maintaining the New Order in the way that he did, as he was almost fully aware of the Vong before Attack of the Clones, at the very least. The sheer strength of the Vong would have overcome even the Clone Wars - era militaries, so creating an escalating series of conflicts was really the best way to hyper-militarise the galaxy. The Death Star, while nominally for keeping local systems in line and destroying the valid rebel threat at bay, would have been a near auto-win against the Vong, ultimately saving life across the galaxy.

What annoys me about the Disney interpretation is that they've downsized everything. Scale just isn't considered any more, and neither is logistics. The Empire previously controlled billions of planets with quadrillions of people. At that scale, a Death star and even their enormous navy is a relatively small cost. Sure, there was strong military buildup, but 25'000 star destroyers across that many systems is a pathetically small amount per planet. Even if 25% of the gdp of the empire was taken up by military spending, the remaining 75 would easily cover basic living conditions for everyone.

On 6/5/2018 at 4:23 AM, Animewarsdude said:

So, I played through the Battlefront DLC story missions again and it looks like there are only hours between Starkiller base firing and its destruction as Iden can see the SK beams from a planet and gets aboard a new star destroyer and after they jump into the system where Starkiller base is it explodes. She then with the other characters jump to the D'Qar where the Resistance is already loading up their ships and preparing to flee with her and the group being given a mission...one we likely we have to get a book for based off of how EA seems to just not want to continue with the game after the lootbox issue. Still, this effectively means that A) that Lucasfilm is unable to line up events themselves or B) that the difference in time between TFA and TLJ is just a hyperspace jump between and from TLJ we know you can get from one end of the galaxy to the other in 6 hours.

I think they've tried to explain that Cobalt Squadron was away doing a relief mission with the Ninka in TFA but that doesn't explain where the rest of their fleet was especially since their base was so small that they wouldn't really be landed there. It also makes it worse too when you think about how the Resistance has supposedly been going around helping people attacked by the FO and other planets and as soon as they ask for help either all their allies are dead or all their humanitarian effort was for not. All I can guess is that based off TLJ ending with the kids and if there is a time skip between the films that the new Resistance will be made up of the children who DO believe in justice and dreams while all the adults are the ones who are willing to allow evil to exist.

Nothing about them makes sense. It's either misinformation or self-contradictory factoids, with a scale so pathetically small yet "bigger and better" that makes everything seem absurd. Having Cobalt squadron away on another mission - any mission - is absurd, given the stakes of starkiller base. The fact they they were there less than 6 hours later implies their mission was either trivially easy or trivially unimportant anyway, so why not just recall them early?

Also, you know that kid with the broom trick? It took both Anakin and Luke years to get that level of control.. This kid is apparently better than them. I wouldn't be surprised to see a resurgent resistance composed almost entirely of teens and backwards adults and... huh, that's what the Rebels TV show was...

On 6/5/2018 at 6:07 PM, Hobojebus said:

Your judging by real life standards in the star wars galaxy slavery is not new or exclusive to the empire, it's part of the ryloth culture for example and has been for thousands of years.

In Legends, but not in the newcanon. A point is made of how slavery is illegal within Republic territory (and Ryloth has its own Senator so it's pretty clearly in Republic territory).

And TCW shows that when slavers get out of hand, building their own empire on raiding the Republic for slaves - the Republic has sent in the Jedi to crush that Empire in the past, and does so again the next time slavers become prominent - the Zygerrian slavers arc.

5 minutes ago, Ironlord said:

In Legends, but not in the newcanon. A point is made of how slavery is illegal within Republic territory (and Ryloth has its own Senator so it's pretty clearly in Republic territory).

And TCW shows that when slavers get out of hand, building their own empire on raiding the Republic for slaves - the Republic has sent in the Jedi to crush that Empire in the past, and does so again the next time slavers become prominent - the Zygerrian slavers arc.

In legends (and old canon) slavery was only illegal on member worlds, so you could be in the heart of republic territory, and if you hadn't signed on, the republic wouldn't interfere.

In the Zygerian arc the republic didn't send a large amount of forces to stop a slave empire - they sent a small incursion force to determine the fate of a small Togruta colony that was already part of the republic. If Zygerians had gone to, say Klattoine, and stolen a billion people, the republic wouldn't have lifted a finger, hence the whole hutt slavery thing.

1 hour ago, Astech said:

In legends (and old canon) slavery was only illegal on member worlds, so you could be in the heart of republic territory, and if you hadn't signed on, the republic wouldn't interfere.

In the Zygerian arc the republic didn't send a large amount of forces to stop a slave empire - they sent a small incursion force to determine the fate of a small Togruta colony that was already part of the republic. If Zygerians had gone to, say Klattoine, and stolen a billion people, the republic wouldn't have lifted a finger, hence the whole hutt slavery thing.

Yea, both the Republic and Empire seem to have for the most part not given two ***** about the people living in the Outer Rim. We see countless times that slavery is employed on various worlds. And yet, the New Republic comes off as even worse when they won't provide aid to any planets that are plagued by pirates or slavers, even ones that generally supported them in the OT.

People can like the new Articles of Confederation style New Republic in the new canon but if I have to pick I'd rather go with the decently competent, if a bit favortist, New Republic from the old EU.

8 hours ago, Astech said:

Based  on  the old canon, Palpative was  almost fully justified in creating and maintaining the New Order in the way that he did, as he was almost fully aware of  the  Vong  befo  re Attack  of the Clone  s,

That wasn’t even part of the old EU, much less canon, that was wild fan speculation based on vague hints from a couple books.

On 5/30/2018 at 7:45 PM, patox said:

They didn't support the New Republic (now destroyed).

They obviously don't support the First Order.

What are they advocating?

What are they going to do that's different than the New Republic?

Low Low Prices as Shop and Save.

8 hours ago, Animewarsdude said:

People can like the new Articles of Confederation style New Republic in the new canon but if I have to pick I'd rather go with the decently competent, if a bit favortist, New Republic from the old EU .

The New New Republic just... doesn't do anything. It seems like every influential character of any sort had just up and left, leaving everyone to wade through bureaucratic sludge. The Old New Republic, when it became entangled, at least had very clear and valid reasons for it (like the whole Spectre of the Past/Vision of the Future storyline). And, of course, the major characters actually did important things .

2 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

That wasn’t even part of the old EU , much less canon, that was wild fan speculation based on vague hints from a couple books.

Not sure if you've read Outbound Flight, but it's essentially the reason Sidious gives Thrawn to kill hundreds of thousands of people, once all other options had been exhausted. Thrawn then reviewed all the documentation Sidious had on the matter and agreed to help. Whatever Sidiuos' information was, it's clear that it was a valid reason for extreme concern.

Later, in the NJO series, it was made very clear that the protagonists agreed that if Sidious - or someone else - had't incited wars at that exact time, then the entirety of known space would be a pushover.

46 minutes ago, Astech said:

The New New Republic just... doesn't do anything. It seems like every influential character of any sort had just up and left, leaving everyone to wade through bureaucratic sludge. The Old New Republic, when it became entangled, at least had very clear and valid reasons for it (like the whole Spectre of the Past/Vision of the Future storyline). And, of course, the major characters actually did important things .

I think it stems from the fact that for the most part the old EU, at least in terms of post OT stuff, was continuing to branch out and grow over time. Likely they started with the fundamental question of 'what's next?' Well, they knew that the Empire was beaten or heavily hurt and that good would prevail, so they went with the next logical step which was the New Republic being a less corrupt and functional government that had to deal with other threats.

On the otherhand we have the new EU, and well that has been completely predicated upon 'How do we get back to the OT dynamic of Rebels vs Large empire?' Thus, the GCW is finished in just over a year after Endor, peace is signed and we mostly get a blank period of 30 years, in which Han, Luke, Leia and everyone pretty much has to go through life changing events that the audience don't get to see until after the fact. It also meant that the new Empire would have to be able to topple the old as fast as possible, preferably in the first film, but from the PT they know that politics is boring 'bleh' so swipe that under the rug and don't discuss it obviously! What about the old characters? Well the actors that snubbed coming back, IE Wedge, get their character's legs broken and relegated to not really being talked about outside of the OT era material, while people who did come back are killed off as means of easily exploitable drama or to set up conflict. Something that we see done to Han, granted Harrison wouldn't come back again, and played with Leia, with Holdo being an example of a means to set up conflict. 'Well if Ackbar was here then no one would mutiny, and if they were worried he'd reassure them that he had a plan. So we need to kill him to set up this drama'

In the new canon we even have examples of how useless the New Republic is. I know in Bloodlines one of the characters from Lost Stars, the Twi'lek pilot, came to the New Republic asking for help to deal with pirates raiding their territory and planet. The New Republic's response? Well they effectively said they couldn't do anything without evidence and would need to establish a committee and group to go out there and investigate, of course neither party of the New Republic would be willing to send a representative of the other party so it would have been grid locked and nothing done at all if not for Leia. And might I add, unlike with Naboo, this was an incident that wasn't somehow a sanctioned blockade but pirates attacking innocents and there wasn't someone there to obviously shut it down for the sake of corruption like the Nemodians tried to do in TPM.

12 hours ago, Astech said:

Based on the old canon, Palpative was almost fully justified in creating and maintaining the New Order in the way that he did, as he was almost fully aware of the Vong

Which is just one reason why the old canon sucked. They gave everyone a happy-ever-after post Endor, and then had to invent a new big-bad-guy for them to fight. Laaame.

Just now, Animewarsdude said:

'Well if Ackbar was here then no one would mutiny, and if they were worried he'd reassure them that he had a plan. So we need to kill him to set up this drama'

It's not about drama, it's about Poe's character. If Ackbar were there, Poe would never learn to think of the bigger picture and learn to trust his allies and superiors. He thinks of himself as an always-knows-best one-man-army and in the end, that got a lot of people killed for no reason. He needed that experience to learn and grow as a character, so that's why Holdo had to be in charge: a relative outsider that didn't have that rapport and tolerance for Poe's idiosyncrasies and ego. To remind him that not only was he a junior officer, he was a recently demoted junior officer who absolutely had no business being privy to the plans of the Resistance command.

4 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

Which is just one reason why the old canon sucked. They gave everyone a happy-ever-after post Endor, and then had to invent a new big-bad-guy for them to fight. Laaame.

So, in the new canon, the Empire is totally and utterly defeated within a year, and the tiny remnants slink off never to be heard of for two decades. In the old canon, it takes 15 years for a peace accord to be signed, with intense warfare all the way to the end. Yes, the old canon is definitely a happy-ever-after OT ending.

7 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

It's not about drama, it's about Poe's character. If Ackbar were there, Poe would never learn to think of the bigger picture and learn to trust his allies and superiors. He thinks of himself as an always-knows-best one-man-army and in the end, that got a lot of people killed for no reason. He needed that experience to learn and grow as a character, so that's why Holdo had to be in charge: a relative outsider that didn't have that rapport and tolerance for Poe's idiosyncrasies and ego. To remind him that not only was he a junior officer, he was a recently demoted junior officer who absolutely had no business being privy to the plans of the Resistance command.

Poe, for one, is not a junior officer. As I recall, he was demoted to captain, meaning that prior to that he was part of the senior command staff. The entire interaction between Holdo and Poe was nonsensical, because it was designed to give Poe an 'aha' moment. Of course, a scant few minutes later, Poe leads a dozen rickety, slow moving craft against a heavily defended ,immobile target and almost everyone dies. Just like at the start of the movie. So no, Poe didn't learn anything, Holdo's confrontational and secretive attitude was not justified in any way , and Ackbar - someone who could just have a heart-to-heart with Poe to change his mind - has now been arbitrarily written out of the story forever.

Holdo effectively killed the resistance through gross mismanagement.

If she hadn't suicided she'd of been up for a courts martial.

They knew it wasn't a spy there was no logical reason to not give the officers a basic outline of the plan, not doing so led to dj being there to reveal the cloaked transports.

Just now, Astech said:

So, in the new canon, the Empire is totally and utterly defeated within a year, and the tiny remnants slink off never to be heard of for two decades. In the old canon, it takes 15 years for a peace accord to be signed, with intense warfare all the way to the end. Yes, the old canon is definitely a happy-ever-after OT ending.

Look, I haven't read ALL the old EU (there was a lot of it) but yeah, it was pretty much happy endings all round. Han and Leia get married and have a happy family life, Luke restarts the Jedi academies and it all goes really well. The Empire is defeated and never heard from again. Everyone just gets what they always wanted. Which is great, but boring as ****. Enter the Vong stage left, to create more conflict. Lame.

I vastly prefer the new canon: After the battle of Jakku, the Empire and Rebellion sign a treaty, effectively the Star Wars galaxy's treaty of Versailles. It's not effective at permanently ending the Empire/First Order and much like inter-war Germany, they make plans to return to power. Han was never meant for a family life and eventually returns to the stars, becoming a distant father to his son. Luke recreates a Jedi academy, but lacking the knowledge, skills and experience he fails, ultimately assisting in creating a new Vader. Leia is disgraced by her connection to Vader and forced out of politics. The new republic is largely ineffectual, and either fails to notice or wilfully ignores the growing menace of the First Order until it's too late, forcing Leia to take direct action by forming the paramilitary Resistance. It's all so much more realistic and interesting that the old EU.

Just now, Astech said:

Poe, for one, is not a junior officer. As I recall, he was demoted to captain, meaning that prior to that he was part of the senior command staff. The entire interaction between Holdo and Poe was nonsensical, because it was designed to give Poe an 'aha' moment. Of course, a scant few minutes later, Poe leads a dozen rickety, slow moving craft against a heavily defended ,immobile target and almost everyone dies. Just like at the start of the movie. So no, Poe didn't learn anything, Holdo's confrontational and secretive attitude was not justified in any way , and Ackbar - someone who could just have a heart-to-heart with Poe to change his mind - has now been arbitrarily written out of the story forever.

The interaction between Holdo and Poe was poignant, believable, and meaningful. The important distinction between the skimmer assault on Crait and the bomber assault on the Dreadnought was that Poe realised victory was impossible and instead of pushing forwards anyway through sheer bloody-mindedness, which is something he would have done at the start of the movie, he called off the attack. Granted we don't see MUCH of the lesson he's learned through interacting with Holdo, but that's not least because this is the middle act of a trilogy and his 'revelation' didn't come until right at the end of the film, but you can see how he has grown as a character by the end of the movie and I guarantee they will do more with him in the next movie as well.

Poe was not some hero that needed to be let in on the plans. That's the point of his character arc. He was a cocky flyboy as likely to get everyone killed as he was to save the day. And what did he do with his mutiny? Got everyone killed. Holdo was exactly right not to move him into a position of senior authority as she could see that he was a know-it-all who thought of himself as the only one capable of saving the day. His ego was too big to let him be a senior officer and he needed to grow and develop before he could do that. And yes, Ackbar had to be out of the picture to make that happen. If the senior command on the Raddus had been part of Poe's clique, then nothing would have changed for him and he wouldn't have changed as a character. Things happen to move the story along. Kenobi had to die for Luke to become the hero, Vader had to die to be redeemed, if Ozzel hadn't cocked up the approach to Hoth the Rebellion would never have escaped, if Bespin hand't been a short sublight flight away from Hoth then the Falcon would never have survived, Luke sent R2, Leia and Chewie to be captured by Jabba just so he could have a cool showdown on the sail barge, etc etc. Arbitrary stuff happens to move the story forwards, to present the characters with obstacles they need to overcome and to give us cool setpieces to watch.

9 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

Han  a  nd Leia get married and  have a happy family lif  e, Luke restarts t  he Jedi academies and it all goes really well. The Empire is defeated and never heard from again.

Han and Leia get married and have a difficult marriage because, though they love each other, both are so busy with their duties to the republic they hardly see each other. Luke restarts the Jedi academy and basically screws up the universe, the empire is defeated and the moping up operation takes 20 years. The old EU certainly had its share of crap, and it was getting pretty stale, but it didn’t really jump the shark until the NJO.

50 minutes ago, Animewarsdude said:

predicated  u  pon 'How do we get back to the OT dynamic of Rebels vs Large empire?' 

Which was such a stupid idea it defies understanding. Practically the first rule of a good sequel is “don’t just rehash the original, do something different.”

truthfully, both EUs have their problems, but the original EU has the excuse of having developed gradually over time and has a decent amount of good material to pad the dreck. The Disney-verse, so far, has started with utter nonsense and isn’t really creating the stand out story lines that can justify that nonsense. Maybe they will get there someday, but so far it is not promising. And there were so many better directions they could have gone in.

Just now, Forgottenlore said:

both EUs have their problems, but the original EU has the excuse of having developed gradually over time and has a decent amount of good material to pad the dreck. The Disney-verse, so far, has started with utter nonsense and isn’t really creating the stand out story lines that can justify that nonsense. Maybe they will get there someday, but so far it is not promising. And there were so many better directions they could have gone in.

I think the biggest problem is simply the 1983-2015 gap. A bunch of stuff, lore wise, happened in that 32 year gap but because we can't put any of it on film (at least, not the parts about Luke, Leia, Han etc) then it makes the development feel sparse and empty. You really have to read the novels to work out what happened in between.

I disagree (quite strongly) with the assertion that the Disney EU is nonsense. It's some of the most realistic and interesting developments I've seen in Star Wars in a long time.

6 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

I disagree  (quite strongly) with the assertion that the Disney EU is nonsense. It's some of the most realistic and interesting developments I've seen in Star Wars in a long time

The leaders of the new republic would have been the leaders of the rebellion. Leaders of a successful rebellion are decisive, proactive, and highly motivated. The idea that those people would have created a new government and then sat back while bureaucrats paralyzed it is the kind of writing a 12 year old would come up with. It’s utterly preposterous. It would take generations for that kind of apathy to set in after a revolution.

5 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

Look, I haven't read ALL the old EU (there was a lot of it) but yeah, it was pretty much happy endings all round. Han and Leia get married and have a happy family life, Luke restarts the Jedi academies and it all goes really well. The Empire is defeated and never heard from again . Everyone just gets what they always wanted. Which is great, but boring as ****. Enter the Vong stage left, to create more conflict. Lame.

I vastly prefer the new canon: After the battle of Jakku, the Empire and Rebellion sign a treaty, effectively the Star Wars galaxy's treaty of Versailles. It's not effective at permanently ending the Empire/First Order and much like inter-war Germany, they make plans to return to power. Han was never meant for a family life and eventually returns to the stars, becoming a distant father to his son. Luke recreates a Jedi academy, but lacking the knowledge, skills and experience he fails, ultimately assisting in creating a new Vader . Leia is disgraced by her connection to Vader and forced out of politics. The new republic is largely ineffectual, and either fails to notice or wilfully ignores the growing menace of the First Order until it's too late, forcing Leia to take direct action by forming the paramilitary Resistance. It's all so much more realistic and interesting that the old EU .

No, it really, really wasn't. It took, perhaps, 3 years for the Rebellion to retake Coruscant after RotJ , for starters. Even that was almost entirely luck due to the infighting between numerous large fractions of the empire. Another 2-3 years down the line and the New Republic has just barely got a handle on things, with the true empire (ignoring splinters of it) measuring about 25% of its original size and still immensely strong. Enter Thrawn, who was minutes away from total victory before a very brave Imperial assassinates him. After that there's another 10 years or so of continuous fighting, and the empire's reduced to a small fragment, with a military that's still incredibly potent. After a last-ditch effort to destabilise the New Republic via political means, a peace accord is finally signed. Various Imperial groups continue to be a serious problem for decades to come, while the Empire proper eventually becomes a staunch ally of the New Republic.

Han and Leia get happily married, then have three kids. One of those kids (Anakin) is seriously troubled by some extreme force powers, and ends up killing himself to save his siblings. Another becomes a ridiculously strong Sith and kills Luke's wife, and the third sibling kills that one. Many of Luke's early attempts to train force users end in near-complete disaster. The academy faces almost constant political pressure.

Enter the Vong, into a political climate that it's later revealed they helped destabilise. They blitz through a huge swathe of the galaxy, essentially forcing the galaxy to temporarily unify to beat them. The character development in this period is immense.

Contrast this to the new canon.

The empire is totally and utterly defeated within a year , which is inexplicable from any perspective. Even more extraordinarily, the New Republic allows a large hostile military presence to leave almost entirely intact. Han's near continuous desire for family (Solo movie info, everything we knew about him before then) is swept aside because plot. Luke recreates the Jedi Academy, which is entirely successful until plot comes in, requiring Luke's 'moment of weakness'. A New Vader is not created - a brat with issues is, and he proceeds to help the Resistance in every way possible from thenceforth. The New Republic does a Britain and fails to even observe the huge military and now political entity that clearly poses a threat . Leai 'forms' a paramilitary resistance from resources unknown (the Raddus alone would have cost the GDP of several star systems), which then proves almost entirely ineffectual save when a plot device wants them to do something.

27 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

The interaction between Holdo and Poe was poignant, believable, and meaningful. The important distinction between the skimmer assault on Crait and the bomber assault on the Dreadnought was that Poe realised victory was impossible and instead of pushing forwards anyway through sheer bloody-mindedness, which is something he would have done at the start of the movie, he called off the attack. Granted we don't see MUCH of the lesson he's learned through interacting with Holdo, but that's not least because this is the middle act of a trilogy and his 'revelation' didn't come until right at the end of the film, but you can see how he has grown as a character by the end of the movie and I guarantee they will do more with him in the next movie as well.

Poe was not some hero that needed to be let in on the plans. That's the point of his character arc. He was a cocky flyboy as likely to get everyone killed as he was to save the day. And what did he do with his mutiny? Got everyone killed. Holdo was exactly right not to move him into a position of senior authority as she could see that he was a know-it-all who thought of himself as the only one capable of saving the day. His ego was too big to let him be a senior officer and he needed to grow and develop before he could do that. And yes, Ackbar had to be out of the picture to make that happen. If the senior command on the Raddus had been part of Poe 's clique, then nothing would have changed for him and he wouldn't have changed as a character. Things happen to move the story along. Kenobi had to die for Luke to become the hero, Vader had to die to be redeemed, if Ozzel hadn't cocked up the approach to Hoth the Rebellion would never have escaped, if Bespin hand't been a short sublight flight away from Hoth then the Falcon would never have survived, Luke sent R2, Leia and Chewie to be captured by Jabba just so he could have a cool showdown on the sail barge, etc etc. Arbitrary stuff happens to move the story forwards, to present the characters with obstacles they need to overcome and to give us cool setpieces to watch.

So to be clear, Poe - an established tactically brilliant commander of men - initially thought that barely armed skimmers that have trouble lifting off the ground, piloted by people who had never flown before into the face of highly trained ground crews across a totally flat field with no cover whatsoever, attempting o take out a hardened semi-imobile ground target didn't realise that it was a suicide mission? But somehow realised it after all the unnamed characters were dead? Come on.

Poe was, at the start of the movie, a commander . We don't have much scale for this kkind of thing, but for reference from prior time periods:

A Commander in the Republic was a commander of legions, typically above ten thousand men.
A Commander in the rebel alliance was a sector's leader.
Heck, a captain has a commanding post on capital ships.

So no, Poe was both a talented and decorated war veteran with a track record of almost nothing but success, he was also part of the senior command staff, possibly next in succession after Holdo. Meaning that Holdo had absolutely no idea what she was doing. Poe's gambit at the start of the movie, despite being plot-armored, led to the destruction of an incredibly valuable and expensive piece of FO hardware. It might not have been an acceptable loss for the truly, pathetically small Resistance, but it was a valid strategy at the time. Ackbar's... not part of Poe's clique. If anything, it's the other way around.

Kenobi never had to die for Luke to be a hero. By the time of Kenobi's death, Luke had of his own volition, stormed through the death star, rescued a prisoner and made it back to his ship. Why Obi-Wan needed to die there is a bit of an enigma, but to make Luke into a hero was not the reason. Vader didn't have to die to be redeemed, he suffered non-plot-critical mortal wounds in the process of redeeming himself. If Palpatine hadn't blasted Vader, he would be alive, well and also redeemed. Ozzel executed a valid military tactic that Vader didn't like, that was all. Luke sent his allies undercover to Jabba's palace to avoid bloodshed, and when that didn't work he cam in himself.

So sure arbitrary things can happen in movies - by definition an entire movie's plot is arbitrary. The trouble with Disney's approach to the new trilogy is that every decision of every character is arbitrary , not consistent with the previous decisions of tht character, their ideals, motivation and so forth. They're self-contradictory and thus unbelievable.

50 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

It's not about drama, it's about Poe's character. If Ackbar were there, Poe would never learn to think of the bigger picture and learn to trust his allies and superiors. He thinks of himself as an always-knows-best one-man-army and in the end, that got a lot of people killed for no reason.

I'm glad you can see that arc, but he did accomplish something. He with the bombers were able to destroy that dreadnought, one known as a fleet killer and that had long range weapons that could have likely shot and destroyed the resistance fleet as it tried to escape from the other ships. And really, he did his part of that mission, he wiped out all the surface guns by himself, it isn't his fault that the rest of his wingmen and Talle couldn't defend the bombers from the few ties that were launched, and that the powerderkeg bombers were flown in such a close formation.

23 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

The interaction between Holdo and Poe was poignant, believable, and meaningful. The important distinction between the skimmer assault on Crait and the bomber assault on the Dreadnought was that Poe realised victory was impossible and instead of pushing forwards anyway through sheer bloody-mindedness, which is something he would have done at the start of the movie, he called off the attack. Granted we don't see MUCH of the lesson he's learned through interacting with Holdo, but that's not least because this is the middle act of a trilogy and his 'revelation' didn't come until right at the end of the film, but you can see how he has grown as a character by the end of the movie and I guarantee they will do more with him in the next movie as well.

Poe was not some hero that needed to be let in on the plans. That's the point of his character arc. He was a cocky flyboy as likely to get everyone killed as he was to save the day. And what did he do with his mutiny? Got everyone killed. Holdo was exactly right not to move him into a position of senior authority as she could see that he was a know-it-all who thought of himself as the only one capable of saving the day. His ego was too big to let him be a senior officer and he needed to grow and develop before he could do that. And yes, Ackbar had to be out of the picture to make that happen. If the senior command on the Raddus had been part of Poe's clique, then nothing would have changed for him and he wouldn't have changed as a character. Things happen to move the story along. Kenobi had to die for Luke to become the hero, Vader had to die to be redeemed, if Ozzel hadn't cocked up the approach to Hoth the Rebellion would never have escaped, if Bespin hand't been a short sublight flight away from Hoth then the Falcon would never have survived, Luke sent R2, Leia and Chewie to be captured by Jabba just so he could have a cool showdown on the sail barge, etc etc. Arbitrary stuff happens to move the story forwards, to present the characters with obstacles they need to overcome and to give us cool setpieces to watch.

I personally don't see TLJ as any kind of middle chapter, granted I don't have some kind of future sight so I COULD VERY WELL be WRONG and Episode 9 ties this all together.

But the thing is that had Holdo given Poe anything to go off of then he wouldn't have done anything that ended up leading to the cascading failure that was the plan she was employing. We can easily argue that she DOESN'T HAVE TO tell her subordinates her plans, but it wouldn't hurt to let them know that there is a plan rather than dismissing them. It wasn't like Poe was the only one participating in a mutiny, other individuals including part of Leia's group, I'd assume Billie Piper's character was part of Leia's group, were a part of it too. I mean, people were jettisoning themselves out into space in escape pods to get away just proves people were scared and her response was basically 'Just do what I say' rather than trying to reassure them or anything.

28 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

Look, I haven't read ALL the old EU (there was a lot of it) but yeah, it was pretty much happy endings all round. Han and Leia get married and have a happy family life, Luke restarts the Jedi academies and it all goes really well. The Empire is defeated and never heard from again. Everyone just gets what they always wanted. Which is great, but boring as ****. Enter the Vong stage left, to create more conflict. Lame.

Luke, Leia, and the rest all have their own troubles in the post-OT era that they have to deal with. I personally think it would also be a more interesting, and hopeful detail, if Han and Leia still tried to work to keep their relationship together. We keep seeing more single parents and while there are relationships that just don't work it might be hopeful insight that despite the troubles they worked through their issues and stayed marries.

And while you obviously don't like the Vong, they are at least a very different enemy than an empire redux. Their main downsides are the fact they are immune to the force and are 90s edge lord space orks. Still, with a little bit of work and removing the force immunity they can be really interesting to play around with. And considering hints in the new canon Thrawn book, and a planned episode for the Clone Wars would have featured the Vong to an existent I think we will be seeing them sooner in the new canon than later.

12 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

Which was such a stupid idea it defies understanding. Practically the first rule of a good sequel is “don’t just rehash the original, do something different.”

It really is, but they wanted to make a safe Disney film banking on nostalgia to help sell tickets. I think they just assumed that people just want the OT based off all the PT complaints and bashing and so they brought us back to a new OT despite how that clashes with how ROTJ ends and invalidates a lot of what our original heroes did.

7 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

I disagree (quite strongly) with the assertion that the Disney EU is nonsense. It's some of the most realistic and interesting developments I've seen in Star Wars in a long time.

I'm not sure if it is the most realistic and there sure are a whole bunch of things I don't care for in the new canon. That said, there have been some really good books like Claudia Grey's Lost Stars and Bloodline, even if the latter of those two show how horrible the new New Republic is. Thrawn was good, though would likely still be good in either new canon or old canon. And from things I've heard there have been some other good standouts like Phasma, even if the films horribly waste her actor.

The old EU has a metric ton of crap, but it also has some real memorable great moments too, I'm sure in time the new canon will similarly accumulate a great collection of works too; however that doesn't help the films. They are too reliant on nostalgia, TFA and TLJ bank on it by having the OT cast even if that has led to some issues with the fandom, RO relies on the OT era and being closely linked to ANH and Solo obviously is tied to Han creating a mostly unnecessary film. Add on the fact that there are talks about doing a Obi-Wan, Lando, and Boba Fett film I think it is pretty clear that they are going to continue to lean that way. I much rather that they try to explore new eras and settings with the films sooner rather than later, be it Old Republic or jumping to some post OT/ST era.

Just now, Forgottenlore said:

The leaders of the new republic would have been the leaders of the rebellion. Leaders of a successful rebellion are decisive, proactive, and highly motivated. The idea that those people would have created a new government and then sat back while bureaucrats paralyzed it is the kind of writing a 12 year old would come up with. It’s utterly preposterous. It would take generations for that kind of apathy to set in after a revolution.

It's exactly what would happen when you reinstate a republic, especially when every constituent star system was already war weary and fearful of another military dictatorship/oligarchy. In Aftermath, Mon Mothma already wants to demilitarise the New Republic. It also mirrors the real world where the winners of the first world war were too scared of starting a second one to effectively oppose the Third Reich. Decisive, proactive and motivated are the antithesis of a democratic republic.

Just now, Astech said:

No, it really, really wasn't. It took, perhaps, 3 years for the Rebellion to retake Coruscant after RotJ , for starters. Even that was almost entirely luck due to the infighting between numerous large fractions of the empire. Another 2-3 years down the line and the New Republic has just barely got a handle on things, with the true empire (ignoring splinters of it) measuring about 25% of its original size and still immensely strong. Enter Thrawn, who was minutes away from total victory before a very brave Imperial assassinates him. After that there's another 10 years or so of continuous fighting, and the empire's reduced to a small fragment, with a military that's still incredibly potent. After a last-ditch effort to destabilise the New Republic via political means, a peace accord is finally signed. Various Imperial groups continue to be a serious problem for decades to come, while the Empire proper eventually becomes a staunch ally of the New Republic.

The point is that that stuff is all *boring*. Yeah yeah, fighting fighting, Empire defeated, blah blah blah. That's filler, just like the wider Rebellion war effort was basically a backdrop in the original trilogy. What's interesting and compelling is the arcs of the characters we're invested in. Han and Leia having a failed marriage is more interesting than having a strained one. Having Luke's academy fail spectacularly is more interesting than it doing well, etc. Luke's character in the new trilogy is the one I like the most. Becoming a broken man, seeing the past repeat itself, terrifying himself by seeing himself capable of murdering his nephew through fear of what he might become and what he might do, being totally demoralised by the apathy of the New Republic and his own failure to prevent a new Vader from rising to power, only to have to come to terms with that failure and make peace with it, to return to the galaxy as the man who stood alone against the entire First Order with a laser sword and create a legacy of heroism and sacrifice, to finally make peace with himself and become one with the force. Seeing him sitting there on that rock, finally at peace, staring at the twin sunset as that music plays... absolutely breathtaking.

2 hours ago, Chucknuckle said:

Look, I haven't read ALL the old EU (there was a lot of it) but yeah, it was pretty much happy endings all round. Han and Leia get married and have a happy family life, Luke restarts the Jedi academies and it all goes really well. The Empire is defeated and never heard from again.

Except their youngest Son dies, their Daughter has to kill their Son, hes Kylo btw, last I checked Luke was booted from the Jedi near the end of the series, The Empire... becomes the Heros. They are to popular to discard.

1 hour ago, Chucknuckle said:

I  n   Aftermath, Mon Mothma already wants to demilitarise the New Republic. 

Which is stupid, and contrary to her character.

1 hour ago, Chucknuckle said:

It   also    mirro  rs  the real world where the winne   rs of the first world war were too scared of starting a second one to effecti  v  e  l  y oppose  th  e Third Reich       

Except those nations DID, eventually, oppose the third Reich. They also were not new nations, but long established ones who had had the time for bureaucracy and political in fighting to set in. A much better analogy would be the founding of the US, whose founding fathers, upon discovering that the original articles of confederation resulted in political gridlock, scrapped the whole thing and wrote the constitution to replace it. And who, 35 years later, still had the will to stand up and fight off foreign attacks.

1 hour ago, Chucknuckle said:

Decisive  , p  roactive and motivated are the antithesis  of a democratic republic.  

Only eventually. While the electorate still remember (or are well educated in) the abuses that led to the rebellion in the first place they can be the hallmarks of a republic because the population feels empowered and unified in their common struggle. It is only after several generations (like I said above) that that kind of self-destructive paralysis sets in.

Just now, Forgottenlore said:

Which is stupid, and contrary to her character.

Except it's not, and it's not.

Just now, Forgottenlore said:

Except those nations DID, eventually, oppose the third Reich. They also were not new nations, but long established ones who had had the time for bureaucracy and political in fighting to set in. A much better analogy would be the founding of the US, whose founding fathers, upon discovering that the original articles of confederation resulted in political gridlock, scrapped the whole thing and wrote the constitution to replace it. And who, 35 years later, still had the will to stand up and fight off foreign attacks.

Yeah they did, but only after more than a decade of essentially outright aggression. The First Order basically starts the Star Wars version of WWII by nuking London, Washington and Moscow all in the same morning, so things take a very different course.

The thing to remember is that the New Republic is not a new nation founded in what is essentially a vacuum like the USA was. It's a collection of representatives from thousands of different star systems, many who had been friendly to the Empire, many who were resentful of the Rebellion, many of whom have history stretching back tens of thousands of years, many of who not only remember the old republic, but actively participated in it. The timespan between the Emperor dissolving the senate in ANH and it being reinstated is relatively small. So not only are you immediately dealing with a massive bureaucracy, you're dealing with lots of legacy arguments and issues, you're dealing with a war-weary galaxy who collectively have absolutely no desire to see a Republic military. Remember, the republic wasn't a military entity in the prequels until they were tricked into buying an army of clones. The leaders of the old rebellion don't want to tear down one military oligarchy just to replace it with a new one.

Just now, Forgottenlore said:

It is only after several generations (like I said above) that that kind of self-destructive paralysis sets in.

That kind of paralysis can set in before lunch. Often it's caused by lunch. Where to eat? Early lunch or late lunch? What about Joe the vegan? Are these chimichangas sourced from ethically sourced ingredients? Don't you know that chimichangas are sacred on my planet? How about eating from a local small businessman to boost the local economy? What about our sponsorship from this multi-system corporation? So on and so forth. The only way to avoid that kind of paralysis is to replace the leadership with a single, decisive individual (or group of like-minded individuals) and then you don't have a democratic republic anymore, but an oligarchy, exactly like the one you tried to replace.

Yes, the new republic IS a brand new government. The planets of the galaxy had been living under the totalitarian control of the empire for almost 30 years. The emperor may have only formally dissolved the senate in ANH, but it was a totally ineffectual body for decades before that and everyone knew it.

The nu-canon (and you) are essentially saying that, with the death of the emperor, the leaders of the rebellion formed a new government, 10,000 Star systems (including, according to you, some who preferred the empire) immediately joined and then immediately gave up trying to do anything else.

The new republic HAS to be active and energetic or else no one would join it. Various planets are war weary, which mean a primary concern of theirs would be getting the republic to protect them from pirates, Raiders, and the crime syndicates that flourished under the empire. The republic has to be engaged with the rest of the galaxy or it simply doesn’t exist, and as long as the people who fought and sacrificed to create it are alive they are not going to let it.

14 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

Except it's not, and it's not.

Excellent argument. I loved how you used evidence and examples to support your claim there. Mom Mothma was the commander in chief of a military organisation with a military focus for over a decade. She was once a senator, but that didn't stop her from engaging in violent and dangerous action where necessary - several Clone Wars arcs have established that. And of course, her sheer experience as a senator would have given her the knowledge not to create a paralytic government in the first place. It's nonsensical.

17 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

Yeah they did, but only after more than a decade of essentially outright aggression. The First Order basically starts the Star Wars version of WWII by nuking London, Washington and Moscow all in the same morning, so things take a very different course.

So the first order destroyed 5% of the galaxy and crippled centralised financial, industrial, economic and political centers? No, they did not. They destroyed 5 planets of an explicitly decentralised government. That's the real-world equivalent of the convetional bombing of a small town - sad, worth going to war over, but not really damaging in the slightest.

20 minutes ago, Chucknuckle said:

The thing to remember is that the New Republic is not a new nation founded in what is essentially a vacuum like the USA was. It's a collection of representatives from thousands of different star systems, many who had been friendly to the Empire, many who were resentful of the Rebellion, many of whom have history stretching back ten s of thousands of years, many of who not only remember the old republic, but actively participated in it. The timespan between the Emperor dissolving the senate in ANH and it being reinstated is relatively small. So not only are you immediately dealing with a massive bureaucracy, you're dealing with lots of legacy arguments and issues, you're dealing with a war-weary galaxy who collectively have absolutely no desire to see a Republic military. Remember, the republic wasn't a military entity in the prequels until they were tricked into buying an army of clones. The leaders of the old rebellion don't want to tear down one military oligarchy just to replace it with a new one.

Just... no. For one, Native Americans were there, with their own system of government and military. They were formed out of a nascent rebellion against the British Empire, which led to war while they were still establishing their own government. Up and until a colony declared its dependence, it was operating under the Empire (British, of course). That's the exact same scenario as the Rebellion. As further parallel, there was an awful lot of infighting between different factions of the US, up until the present day, exactly like the rebellion .

The republic did have a military - part of their responsibility was to defend charter systems from attack. Their military was just composed of localised defence forces rather than the coagulation of a whole political body's military might against another political body. By the time of the Empire's defeat, sure, some planets were war weary. Many others wanted it to continue, if only so they could ensure their continued safety.

As a side not, an oligarchy is rule by the wealthiest citizens of a society, like America ? . You'd be thinking of either a dictatorship or a theocracy, depending on how you viewed Palpatine and the Force.