28 minutes ago, Triangular said:

I like Rogue One. This movie resembles a bit episode V. It's darker and harder. But it's still a group of friends against all odds, outnumbered and outgunned fighting the big evil. No exception in my eyes.

Let's back on the Senator story. He is pretty outnumbered and alone being a free-verse. You will miss just blasters and exploring and maybe not even that. It will happen that the guns are not carried by the protagonist.

Or a story about a stormtrooper. Mostly the same: being a free-verse within a squad<regiment<army of fascist is other way to be outnumbered.

Even if you just want to see a pewpew film let's talk about imperial spies, or other stories. I easily imagine an imperial squad being abandoned due to other imperial priorities.

If someone could just avoid to restrict himself. I really think "a star wars story" label opened a great path for exploring SW universe and I have my hopes on it after seeing the quality of the last main-line episode, but that's another debate.

Just remake Top Gun with TIE jockeys ty

2 hours ago, ISD Avenger said:

You could still do an imperial hero that props up the new order but doesn’t exactly like it.

And ever since Andor straight up murdered a guy 10 mins into R1, rebels ain’t all sweetness & light either.

That's why I liked Rogue One so much, because the Rebels were more gray in morals. What I want is an Imperial film that brings some of the Empire into grey territory.

The villain you can at least partially relate to makes the story richer. Have the movie centered around a conflict against another non-Rebel enemy, to have the audience not feel conflicted about supporting the Imperial protagonists like a Separatist Holdout or hostile alien race.

54 minutes ago, Piratical Moustache said:

That's why I liked Rogue One so much, because the Rebels were more gray in morals. What I want is an Imperial film that brings some of the Empire into grey territory.

The villain you can at least partially relate to makes the story richer. Have the movie centered around a conflict against another non-Rebel enemy, to have the audience not feel conflicted about supporting the Imperial protagonists like a Separatist Holdout or hostile alien race.

I never felt conflicted with Vader slaughtering rebel people. I like it and I think there won't ever be enough.

No.

There's a reason why all the good guys left Imperial service in the original trilogy. What can possibly be the motive for anyone choosing to stay? I enjoy shooting uppity green-people too much - I'm gonna' keep Storm Trooping? Storm Troopers are literally what we've historically described Nazi's as.

I'd accept another film in the time period around Rogue One starring Wedge and Biggs as fresh Imperial volunteers showing their time at the Academy before changing teams and joining the Rebels. Maybe an Apocalypse Now-ish film about Imperial ground troopers on a backwater planet being eaten alive by jungle insects finally seeing through the Imperial propaganda and rebelling against their jack-booted leadership.

No. I don't think a pro-Imperial movie would land well. The Empire is basically space nazis. Doing anything that makes them seem cool is a risky proposition. If you make the Imperials sympathetic, it sort of undercuts the rest of the SW movie franchise. If you turn any of their characters into heroes, you start putting rebel types as villains and things get dicey. It would be hard to make a pro-Imperial movie that won't trigger a few people and get some seriously bad press. The Imps are pro-slavery and pro-racism. Sort of hard to make a pro-imperial movie that somehow avoids all the negative aspects of the Empire.

German perspective WW2 movies and few and far between because trying to get that balance is tough, and most of them just end up portraying the German forces as just another military force which sort of clashes with our perspective a bit.

I know we aren't exactly talking pro-Imperial ideals here, and more of just an Imperial focused movie, but I think it's too risky of an idea for a block buster movie release. Doing a more mature cartoon series that follows a group of ace TIE pilots, or some special forces troopers? Sure. Having comics that focus on Imperial forces? Absolutely. Even video games that allow you to take that side are ok. But doing a block buster movie that would take that sort of budget and would need to appeal to a wide range of people, even if done in a way that somehow minimizes making the Empire look cool or good would be too big of a risk. SJWs would be offended. Mysoginists would be offended by the amount of women in the movie. The pro-Nazi types would view this as their version of Star Wars completely missing the point. The hardcore SW fans would be offended by...well everything.

Now an Inglorious Bastards/Dirty Dozen style movie following some crazy resistance forces would be interesting, but probably too mature for SW.

A Fury style movie following a small group of Rebels in some crazy over the top outnumbered scenario would be cool.

A heist style mercenary/bounty hunter movie would be neat. It glamorizes crime (which is ok) but doesn't glamorize the bad guys.

I could see a movie that focuses on an individual who comes from the core worlds and only sees the 'good' side of the Empire, joins up, becomes a cog, sees the reality and frees some slaves and starts a rebellion. Might be tough to condense that down to a 2 hour format and still get all the emotion you need.

14 minutes ago, TaeSWXW said:

No.

There's a reason why all the good guys left Imperial service in the original trilogy. What can possibly be the motive for anyone choosing to stay? I enjoy shooting uppity green-people too much - I'm gonna' keep Storm Trooping? Storm Troopers are literally what we've historically described Nazi's as.

I'd accept another film in the time period around Rogue One starring Wedge and Biggs as fresh Imperial volunteers showing their time at the Academy before changing teams and joining the Rebels. Maybe an Apocalypse Now-ish film about Imperial ground troopers on a backwater planet being eaten alive by jungle insects finally seeing through the Imperial propaganda and rebelling against their jack-booted leadership.

Maybe we've historically described as Nazi more than what really was.

I'm going to have to go on the "no" side of the argument.

Seeing the Imperial perspective is always cool, but I don't see a pro-Imperial film working out well. The Empire is, at it's core, evil. It radicalizes its citizens and soldiers while spreading a pro-human view through the galaxy. They destroyed Alderaan just to demonstrate the full power of their new toy.

A movie about the people supporting that kind of rule (even if its just soldiers following orders) just doesn't seem right to me. Painting the Imperials in a positive light takes away from what the good guys in the Original Trilogy and Rogue One did. Because what those heroes did was the right thing to do against an evil like the Empire.

51 minutes ago, Derpzilla88 said:

I'm going to have to go on the "no" side of the argument.

Seeing the Imperial perspective is always cool, but I don't see a pro-Imperial film working out well. The Empire is, at it's core, evil. It radicalizes its citizens and soldiers while spreading a pro-human view through the galaxy. They destroyed Alderaan just to demonstrate the full power of their new toy.

A movie about the people supporting that kind of rule (even if its just soldiers following orders) just doesn't seem right to me. Painting the Imperials in a positive light takes away from what the good guys in the Original Trilogy and Rogue One did. Because what those heroes did was the right thing to do against an evil like the Empire.

Honestly it seems the sci fi equivalent of making a pro nazi protagonist movie. It gives me all kinds of icks

Der Untergang, Valkyrie, Schindler's list, Paths of Glory (again), The desert fox

I mean, it is true that with pro-imperial I just understood Empire-focused in a way you can see a 3D-Empire not a plain and flat one. It is not about the Empire rather than imperial people. Of course there must be terrible people governiing the Empire or it wouldn't be so evil, but all cannot be that evil or killing the Emperor would have changed nothing.

I think it could be an interesting take on the Star Wars universe.

Everyone just accepts the Empire as this nasty organization that is filled to the brim with your stereotypical mustache twisting evil bad guys.

Thousands of star systems and literal billions of crew members and soldiers and there weren't any decent people in the entire military? Even if the Empire is supposed to be a fictional parallel of our worlds Nazis, even the Nazis had people who were eventually recognized as "righteous among nations"[1]

The thought of a story centered around a person or even a group of people lulled into the Empire by the zeal of patriotism after the clone wars and the desire to keep the people they love safe, with the growing ethical conflict of keeping people safe from real terrorist acts against Imperial civilians and the increasingly diabolical actions of the Empire's command structure would be a HELLA compelling story. Even if the protagonist made the morally wrong choices, it would give so much more depth to how an empire tagged as "evil" could last so long and the everyday struggle of those who got caught up in it.


I'd be interested if it was done right... BFIIs campaign was a near miss.

18 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Der Untergang, Valkyrie, Schindler's list, Paths of Glory (again), The desert fox

I mean, it is true that with pro-imperial I just understood Empire-focused in a way you can see a 3D-Empire not a plain and flat one. It is not about the Empire rather than imperial people. Of course there must be terrible people governiing the Empire or it wouldn't be so evil, but all cannot be that evil or killing the Emperor would have changed nothing.

And lots of those are revisionist. For example people now think Erwin rommel was this honorable warrior fighting out of a sense of duty when he truly was as bad as most of the upper echelon. And Valkyrie would be a rebel movie.

3 minutes ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

And lots of those are revisionist. For example people now think Erwin rommel was this honorable warrior fighting out of a sense of duty when he truly was as bad as most of the upper echelon. And Valkyrie would be a rebel movie.

I acknowledge that I don't know what the stuff of Rommel you say come from. All I ever did was to read his memories. Evenif it really matches Rommel true story or not a story about the hopes on a leader that turn being the worst you ever saw is interesting.

About Valkyrie you're completely wrong. It wouldn't be a rebel movie. Characters would be imperial officers that would support the Empire at all cost, even to support the Empire at the cost of its leader. That's the key. When you have a personal regime you have a lot of room for free verses within that regime, specially when those free verses have responsabilities but not enough power. The Republic was inmersed in a civil war. The Empire brought peace to the Galaxy. The Empire is evil cause its leader is but is not evil per se and I think a lot of people supported it casue they believe it was, at least, necessary. A necessary step to recover peace and true democracy from a corrupted and decadent Republic. The Rebellion fight the stream from outside. They want to destroy it. I guess a lot of people tried to change the stream from inside instead of destroying it and a lot of people are just dragged by the stream and breath as best as they can.

49 minutes ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

Honestly it seems the sci fi equivalent of making a pro nazi protagonist movie. It gives me all kinds of icks

The Galactic Empire is a compilation of totalitarian governments throughout history, not just Nazi Germany.

"Lucas has also indicated in various sources that the Galactic Empire was largely derived from America during the time of the Vietnam War, and more specifically Richard Nixon's time as President, with it dating back as early as 1973 when he first started working on the first film, with his friend Walter Murch also verifying this to be the case."

Even America was an influence when George Lucas made the Empire.

3 minutes ago, Piratical Moustache said:

The Galactic Empire is a compilation of totalitarian governments throughout history, not just Nazi Germany.

"Lucas has also indicated in various sources that the Galactic Empire was largely derived from America during the time of the Vietnam War, and more specifically Richard Nixon's time as President, with it dating back as early as 1973 when he first started working on the first film, with his friend Walter Murch also verifying this to be the case."

Even America was an influence when George Lucas made the Empire.

Nixon was the naziest amongst the nazis?

I do not want "teach the controversy" about the innocent crew killed aboard the death star, I do not want "Alderaan was an inside job" and I do not want to "both sides" Base Delta Zero.

I do not know if I personally would have the courage to leave my wife a widow and my daughter without a father to fight an evil government. But I do want inspirational stories about fighting evil.

And someone throwing grit in the gears of the Empire is a Rebel, just as much as someone flying an X-wing or planting a bomb.

If someone wrote a character-driven story about an imperial bureaucrat issuing transit vouchers to Mon Calamari escaping to the outer rim, that would be an interesting story, but not "pro-imperial" in my book.

37 minutes ago, Piratical Moustache said:

The Galactic Empire is a compilation of totalitarian governments throughout history, not just Nazi Germany.

"Lucas has also indicated in various sources that the Galactic Empire was largely derived from America during the time of the Vietnam War, and more specifically Richard Nixon's time as President, with it dating back as early as 1973 when he first started working on the first film, with his friend Walter Murch also verifying this to be the case."

Even America was an influence when George Lucas made the Empire.

It's almost like America is bad or something

11 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

I do not want "teach the controversy" about the innocent crew killed aboard the death star, I do not want "Alderaan was an inside job" and I do not want to "both sides" Base Delta Zero.

I do not know if I personally would have the courage to leave my wife a widow and my daughter without a father to fight an evil government. But I do want inspirational stories about fighting evil.

And someone throwing grit in the gears of the Empire is a Rebel, just as much as someone flying an X-wing or planting a bomb.

If someone wrote a character-driven story about an imperial bureaucrat issuing transit vouchers to Mon Calamari escaping to the outer rim, that would be an interesting story, but not "pro-imperial" in my book.

I guess anyone who think Empire=Evil would think on Pro-Imperial=Pro-Evil and definitely that's not a story to tell.

I gess anyone who think otherwise has no problem with a pro-imperial film as long as pro-imperial is not pro-evil. Of course that could be considered another way to be a rebel. I agree. And that is what I understood from the OP. I, for someone reason I cannot explain, took for granted that @Piratical Moustache didn't want an apology of evil, rather than a deeper approach to the Empire in order to explore that the Empire was not truly evil rather than Pappatine himself and that imperial evilness was just a consequence of the personal regime Palpatine developed. But as I said, maybe I took it wrong.

It could be done rather well, just as the Nazi regime was bad and did horrific acts, when many german soldiers were shown what the Nazi Regime had done, many were horrified. The Nazi Regime was bad, not all german soldiers were monsters.

In a similar vein, imagine the imperial garrison on some backwater planet. Its the height of the Imperial Reign, they are there to keep the peace, as this world had been part of the republic before, so no one has that much hatred to start with. We follow Echo Squad, a Imperial Army Armor Corps unit tasked with keeping the peace. So to start, these guys arnt Stormtroopers, they are Army Soldiers before the Storm Trooper Corps became the primary infantry corps. For the start of the film, they are patrolling around the city with their tank or whatever doing their thing. Helping people, being nice. They grew up here, at the start the empire practiced a garrison the place you grew up mentality... police your own, sorta thing...

We are jump cut through days, weeks, months... a new commander comes in and before long they are shipped out to where fighting is. Another year passes as they are rolled into the Stormtrooper Corps. They cycle back their homeworld now Stormtroopers, they land, and everything has changed... they can see it but dont know what to do, so they do what they had been doing... trying to make their way like they used to, but now civilians are resentful, and dislike them. A rebel cell has sprung up, one of the troopers dies. Its rough...

Then, there is news of a mining accident at Scarif, one of them looks into it on his own and finds out. Suddenly Alderaan has a 'mining accident' as well, at the same time the rebel cell gets more extreme. The soldiers flee imperial service because they see the dark it has become, keeping their armor and weapons, but dont trust the extreme rebels also.

They are fighting for the empire, but for what the empire had stood for, not for the tyrrany it has become. Others join them, soon they are considered traitors to the empire, but the rebels dont trust them either. They stand in a weird, grey area on both sides. Fighting for what they believe is right, even if it differs from what everyone else does.

It could be done.

Will it. Probably not.

Evil regimes are built by a handful of men like Palpatine and Tarkin... and countless normal people. I’m honestly a little surprised by how many people equate the draconian policies, corruption and outright atrocities of the Empire with “therefore, everyone in it is evil” or “therefore, we can’t portray any good in it whatsoever.” What I like about this franchise is the moral ambiguity. Starting in the Tantive IV boarding scene, we see a stormtrooper checking a fallen comrade for signs of life. Suddenly, we know there are humans under the armor. RoTJ had a deleted scene of Jerjerrod’s shock and uncertainty when ordered to destroy the moon of Endor. What if Finn weren’t on his very first mission when he deserted, but had already committed heinous actions? Would he be a monster? What of the people like Finn who chose to stay, or never found the courage or opportunity to leave? Point-blank: I’m sick of a beleaguered group of Rebels doing the right thing. That’s morally a fairly easy choice when you’ve had your home and/or family taken from you like Cassian, Luke, Jyn, Leia, Baze, Chirrut, Chewbacca, and Hera have (note the two members of the R1 crew excluded - ex-Imperials.) It would so much more interesting to see a character trying to actually avoid the wrong decisions.

I think a "Pro-Imperial" movie and a movie centered on an Imperial are two very different things. A pro-imperial movie isn't what a movie should be about but a movie centered on a character that is an Imperial could work. If there were a movie that focused on an Imperial citizen, soldier, or naval officer I think it should be something like the movie Valkyrie. Ultimately I think the protagonist of the movie would have to turn against or choose to leave the Empire because they realize what their government stands for is wrong.

I will agree with everyone saying that just because someone is an Imperial doesn't mean they're evil. I don't think that's the issue. There are plenty of stories within the Star Wars universe which show that. The story of Ciena Ree in Lost Stars is one of the best examples of this, I think. Lost Stars could actually turn into a really cool movie, honestly.

5 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Maybe we've historically described as Nazi more than what really was.

if people think nazi = every single german, hungarian, romanian, italian, finnish soldier then indeed.

don't get me wrong, Dutch people that volunteered to fight on the eastern fron? NSBers and shitheels of the highest order. but not every soldier from every country involved with the axis on a buddy-buddy basis.

For some reason I didn't expect Nazis to come into the discussion. To me the Galactic Empire takes certain aesthetics from Nazi Germany, but I wouldn't call Imperials Nazis in space. I see the Galactic Empire as an amalgamation of historical powers like the British Empire and Roman Empire.

To me, the only 100% evil person is the Emperor himself, even Vader had some good in him. It is my belief that most Imperials were normal people trying to due what was right from their point of view. Yes there is corrupt officials and unsavory people in power... but that could describe any real life government.

3 hours ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

It's almost like America is bad or something

3 hours ago, Baltanok said:

But I do want inspirational stories about fighting evil.

There is this one country that keeps having people cheerlead rebranded nazi parties in Europe and has a tendency to topple elected democracies in south america and the middle east to install puppet leaders which sometimes backfires and causes chaos, they were pretty keen on funding right wing terrorism, other times they have conspired with allies to drop oil prices to bring other countries to financial ruin while supporting corrupt businessmen as the sollution to the financial mess partially caused by them.

the people in this country support their troops.

What I told you is true...

@Geressen Not saying that I disagree with you, but I don't want a powderkeg started with my name attached.

I do firmly believe that patriotism should not equate blindness, but again this is a Star Wars forum, not a political one.