On 11/22/2019 at 4:23 PM, Darth Sanguis said:

Well... here ya go... this is how the New Republic fell.

IMO when I saw the movie I thought that was just planets being shot because EXPLOSIONS!!!

23 minutes ago, Bolshevik6 said:

An interesting point but I think at some stage you have to trust your senior officers.

This. Exactly this but UNO reverse card.

This is a military organisation. Superiors do not have to justify or explain their orders to their subordinates. It was Poe who was totally out of line to question his orders. Or how did you put it?

25 minutes ago, Bolshevik6 said:

at some stage you have to trust your senior officers.

😜

On 11/22/2019 at 4:45 PM, dominosfleet said:

I generally like Force Awakens, i give it WAY more credit than Last Jedi, but man i can't stand Star Killer base and this nonsense. There are countless ways they could have done this, I think they might have picked the worst.

*I still enjoy the trench scene fine and the moment Rey force grips the lightsaber still brings a small tear to my eye(such good music)*

That's fair, I just wish they'd world build faster so we know more about how it came to be. It's looking like the First Order just installed the weapon into the stripped remains of Ilum. I don't know if it's confirmed yet, but Jedi Fallen Order seems to imply it from what I've heard.

9 hours ago, Bolshevik6 said:

What's never made sense to me is that the New Republic are aware of the rise of the First Order so why mess about using a Resistance with political deniability? Why would they not just send in the New Republic's army and fleet to destroy the First Order before they became too powerful?

tl;dr: politics.

One of the problems with the Sequels is that a lot is left for backstory in the novels etc.

The New Republic is aware of the First Order, but doesn't interfere for political reasons. Firstly, there's a lot of internal political debate within the New Republic with two factions, the unhelpfully named "Centrists", who want a strong, centralised Republic government, big military, and admire some elements of the Empire (a US-style Republic), and the "Populists" who want a weaker central government, with most power (and sovereignty) reserved to the individual systems (a EU-style Republic). There's a lot of infighting, and no one really has time to deal with outside problems.

There's also the Galactic Concordance - the treaty between the New Republic and Galactic Empire following the latter's defeat at the Battle of Jakku. While most of the terms are limiting the Empire (understandably), there were restrictions on the size of the Republic military, and on any territorial or external aggression by the Republic

So... the First Order rises in the Unknown Regions, but initially they're too far away from anywhere civilised for the Republic Government to care about. The Centrists have similar ideals (and in some cases, are secretly working for the FO), and the Populists don't think the Republic should interfere because that's too strong a central government. And even if they wanted to, taking action against the First Order might break the Galactic Concordance and the Imperial Remnant could complain. And it's hard to promote yourself as the "not the Empire" government, that stands up for freedom and so on if you're going to invade and crush your neighbours.

As the First Order gets stronger, they end up in a kind of Cold War. The FO doesn't want to oppose the Republic openly (as they're outnumbered and out-gunned) and the Republic doesn't want a third Galactic Civil War in a century.

And this is where the Resistance comes in. Leia starts warning about the FO, and trying to rally support for the Republic to take action. But this is spun (by her political opponents and secret FO collaborators) as her trying to distract from the Centrist v Populist problems, and her enemies choose that moment to leak information about her parentage, which destroys her political career. She gives up on the Republic and decides to form a Resistance to take on the First Order herself (taking a handful of prominent Republican military people with her).

So the Resistance isn't part of the Republic. It's not sanctioned, even unofficially. They really are on their own (hence limited to a handful of out-of-date X-Wings and A-Wings, and some mothballed starships).

The First Order complains to the Republic about the Resistance, and the Republic denies involvement (which makes the Resistance fair game for the FO to wipe out, as they're just a bunch of "terrorists"). And the FO's argument is understandable; all these prominent people (Leia, Ackbar), all this former Republic military - it does look like the Republic is backing them.

And then we get into the actual film content. The FO is trying to destroy the Resistance (which is struggling to do anything without support from the Republic). They've also finally finished Starkiller Base as a way of attacking the Republic if they have to (the nuclear option in the cold war). And then Snoke panics about Luke Skywalker coming back (because Snoke fears Luke; a Jedi Master could cause all kinds of trouble). Hux (who is a fanatic and just wants to destroy the Republic) persuades Snoke that the only way to be safe from Skywalker is if they destroy the Resistance, and the only way to destroy the Resistance is to cut off their support from the Republic, and the only way to do that is to attack the Republic.

Hux then uses claims about the Republic's support for the Resistance in his speech justifying mass murder. "At this very moment, in a system far from here the New Republic lies to the Galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance."

So... yeah... politics.

59 minutes ago, Grumbleduke said:

tl;dr: politics.

One of the problems with the Sequels is that a lot is left for backstory in the novels etc.

The New Republic is aware of the First Order, but doesn't interfere for political reasons. Firstly, there's a lot of internal political debate within the New Republic with two factions, the unhelpfully named "Centrists", who want a strong, centralised Republic government, big military, and admire some elements of the Empire (a US-style Republic), and the "Populists" who want a weaker central government, with most power (and sovereignty) reserved to the individual systems (a EU-style Republic). There's a lot of infighting, and no one really has time to deal with outside problems.

There's also the Galactic Concordance - the treaty between the New Republic and Galactic Empire following the latter's defeat at the Battle of Jakku. While most of the terms are limiting the Empire (understandably), there were restrictions on the size of the Republic military, and on any territorial or external aggression by the Republic

So... the First Order rises in the Unknown Regions, but initially they're too far away from anywhere civilised for the Republic Government to care about. The Centrists have similar ideals (and in some cases, are secretly working for the FO), and the Populists don't think the Republic should interfere because that's too strong a central government. And even if they wanted to, taking action against the First Order might break the Galactic Concordance and the Imperial Remnant could complain. And it's hard to promote yourself as the "not the Empire" government, that stands up for freedom and so on if you're going to invade and crush your neighbours.

As the First Order gets stronger, they end up in a kind of Cold War. The FO doesn't want to oppose the Republic openly (as they're outnumbered and out-gunned) and the Republic doesn't want a third Galactic Civil War in a century.

And this is where the Resistance comes in. Leia starts warning about the FO, and trying to rally support for the Republic to take action. But this is spun (by her political opponents and secret FO collaborators) as her trying to distract from the Centrist v Populist problems, and her enemies choose that moment to leak information about her parentage, which destroys her political career. She gives up on the Republic and decides to form a Resistance to take on the First Order herself (taking a handful of prominent Republican military people with her).

So the Resistance isn't part of the Republic. It's not sanctioned, even unofficially. They really are on their own (hence limited to a handful of out-of-date X-Wings and A-Wings, and some mothballed starships).

The First Order complains to the Republic about the Resistance, and the Republic denies involvement (which makes the Resistance fair game for the FO to wipe out, as they're just a bunch of "terrorists"). And the FO's argument is understandable; all these prominent people (Leia, Ackbar), all this former Republic military - it does look like the Republic is backing them.

And then we get into the actual film content. The FO is trying to destroy the Resistance (which is struggling to do anything without support from the Republic). They've also finally finished Starkiller Base as a way of attacking the Republic if they have to (the nuclear option in the cold war). And then Snoke panics about Luke Skywalker coming back (because Snoke fears Luke; a Jedi Master could cause all kinds of trouble). Hux (who is a fanatic and just wants to destroy the Republic) persuades Snoke that the only way to be safe from Skywalker is if they destroy the Resistance, and the only way to destroy the Resistance is to cut off their support from the Republic, and the only way to do that is to attack the Republic.

Hux then uses claims about the Republic's support for the Resistance in his speech justifying mass murder. "At this very moment, in a system far from here the New Republic lies to the Galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance."

So... yeah... politics.

Proper good summary

2 hours ago, Grumbleduke said:

tl;dr: politics.

One of the problems with the Sequels is that a lot is left for backstory in the novels etc.

The New Republic is aware of the First Order, but doesn't interfere for political reasons. Firstly, there's a lot of internal political debate within the New Republic with two factions, the unhelpfully named "Centrists", who want a strong, centralised Republic government, big military, and admire some elements of the Empire (a US-style Republic), and the "Populists" who want a weaker central government, with most power (and sovereignty) reserved to the individual systems (a EU-style Republic). There's a lot of infighting, and no one really has time to deal with outside problems.

There's also the Galactic Concordance - the treaty between the New Republic and Galactic Empire following the latter's defeat at the Battle of Jakku. While most of the terms are limiting the Empire (understandably), there were restrictions on the size of the Republic military, and on any territorial or external aggression by the Republic

So... the First Order rises in the Unknown Regions, but initially they're too far away from anywhere civilised for the Republic Government to care about. The Centrists have similar ideals (and in some cases, are secretly working for the FO), and the Populists don't think the Republic should interfere because that's too strong a central government. And even if they wanted to, taking action against the First Order might break the Galactic Concordance and the Imperial Remnant could complain. And it's hard to promote yourself as the "not the Empire" government, that stands up for freedom and so on if you're going to invade and crush your neighbours.

As the First Order gets stronger, they end up in a kind of Cold War. The FO doesn't want to oppose the Republic openly (as they're outnumbered and out-gunned) and the Republic doesn't want a third Galactic Civil War in a century.

And this is where the Resistance comes in. Leia starts warning about the FO, and trying to rally support for the Republic to take action. But this is spun (by her political opponents and secret FO collaborators) as her trying to distract from the Centrist v Populist problems, and her enemies choose that moment to leak information about her parentage, which destroys her political career. She gives up on the Republic and decides to form a Resistance to take on the First Order herself (taking a handful of prominent Republican military people with her).

So the Resistance isn't part of the Republic. It's not sanctioned, even unofficially. They really are on their own (hence limited to a handful of out-of-date X-Wings and A-Wings, and some mothballed starships).

The First Order complains to the Republic about the Resistance, and the Republic denies involvement (which makes the Resistance fair game for the FO to wipe out, as they're just a bunch of "terrorists"). And the FO's argument is understandable; all these prominent people (Leia, Ackbar), all this former Republic military - it does look like the Republic is backing them.

And then we get into the actual film content. The FO is trying to destroy the Resistance (which is struggling to do anything without support from the Republic). They've also finally finished Starkiller Base as a way of attacking the Republic if they have to (the nuclear option in the cold war). And then Snoke panics about Luke Skywalker coming back (because Snoke fears Luke; a Jedi Master could cause all kinds of trouble). Hux (who is a fanatic and just wants to destroy the Republic) persuades Snoke that the only way to be safe from Skywalker is if they destroy the Resistance, and the only way to destroy the Resistance is to cut off their support from the Republic, and the only way to do that is to attack the Republic.

Hux then uses claims about the Republic's support for the Resistance in his speech justifying mass murder. "At this very moment, in a system far from here the New Republic lies to the Galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance."

So... yeah... politics.

Why couldn't that have been the force awakens? It would have been much better.

1 hour ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Proper good summary

Of everything that should have been illuded to in TFA.

Disney eliminated the EU to clear the crap, and prevent "required reading", then gave us required reading to understand TFA...

Then we get to TLJ... Finn, Poe & Rose's actions Directly lead to the deaths of 95% of the resistance, and that waste of film that was the Cantobite sequence... THESE ARE THE NEW HEROES?!?!. Why, because the "new leadership" didn't bother to reassure troops that are literally running for their lives, that they even had a plan, and instead was more concerned with snarky comments.

Just on a basic level, why do I want to go sit through 2 hours of watching "the heroes" screw the pooch? Just blast the X-wing with a turbolaser at the start of the movie, and the resistance is still intact!

So, yeah, love the poster revision.

9 minutes ago, cynanbloodbane said:

Of everything that should have been illuded to in TFA.

15 minutes ago, Grathew said:

Why couldn't that have been the force awakens? It would have been much better.

I can tell you why. Because people complained that the prequels had to much politics. So I guess Disney decided that their films would return to being more character focussed and less about galactic politics.

23 minutes ago, Grathew said:

Why couldn't that have been the force awakens? It would have been much better.

Because people hated so much on the prequels for the "excessiveness" of political talk and plot. Disney/Lucasfilm/JJ Abrams decided to listen to that feedback and tone down the political talk to focus just on the characters and evens in their space fantasy. They just took it a step too far.

4 hours ago, Bolshevik6 said:

An interesting point but I think at some stage you have to trust your senior officers. Otherwise it makes executing the plan almost impossible.

If the information was indeed on lockdown she could simply have told him that and explained the reasons why. I don't recall anywhere in the film that she actually chose to do that.

She probably knows him as that guy who threw away an entire bomber wing wastefully and just got demoted for it. Given that the attack shouldn’t have even achieved the objective in the first place and involved Poe not getting fired on by a First Order fleet, he’d be seen as incompetent at best and a top suspect at worst.

3 hours ago, Grumbleduke said:

tl;dr: politics.

One of the problems with the Sequels is that a lot is left for backstory in the novels etc.

The New Republic is aware of the First Order, but doesn't interfere for political reasons. Firstly, there's a lot of internal political debate within the New Republic with two factions, the unhelpfully named "Centrists", who want a strong, centralised Republic government, big military, and admire some elements of the Empire (a US-style Republic), and the "Populists" who want a weaker central government, with most power (and sovereignty) reserved to the individual systems (a EU-style Republic). There's a lot of infighting, and no one really has time to deal with outside problems.

There's also the Galactic Concordance - the treaty between the New Republic and Galactic Empire following the latter's defeat at the Battle of Jakku. While most of the terms are limiting the Empire (understandably), there were restrictions on the size of the Republic military, and on any territorial or external aggression by the Republic

So... the First Order rises in the Unknown Regions, but initially they're too far away from anywhere civilised for the Republic Government to care about. The Centrists have similar ideals (and in some cases, are secretly working for the FO), and the Populists don't think the Republic should interfere because that's too strong a central government. And even if they wanted to, taking action against the First Order might break the Galactic Concordance and the Imperial Remnant could complain. And it's hard to promote yourself as the "not the Empire" government, that stands up for freedom and so on if you're going to invade and crush your neighbours.

As the First Order gets stronger, they end up in a kind of Cold War. The FO doesn't want to oppose the Republic openly (as they're outnumbered and out-gunned) and the Republic doesn't want a third Galactic Civil War in a century.

And this is where the Resistance comes in. Leia starts warning about the FO, and trying to rally support for the Republic to take action. But this is spun (by her political opponents and secret FO collaborators) as her trying to distract from the Centrist v Populist problems, and her enemies choose that moment to leak information about her parentage, which destroys her political career. She gives up on the Republic and decides to form a Resistance to take on the First Order herself (taking a handful of prominent Republican military people with her).

So the Resistance isn't part of the Republic. It's not sanctioned, even unofficially. They really are on their own (hence limited to a handful of out-of-date X-Wings and A-Wings, and some mothballed starships).

The First Order complains to the Republic about the Resistance, and the Republic denies involvement (which makes the Resistance fair game for the FO to wipe out, as they're just a bunch of "terrorists"). And the FO's argument is understandable; all these prominent people (Leia, Ackbar), all this former Republic military - it does look like the Republic is backing them.

And then we get into the actual film content. The FO is trying to destroy the Resistance (which is struggling to do anything without support from the Republic). They've also finally finished Starkiller Base as a way of attacking the Republic if they have to (the nuclear option in the cold war). And then Snoke panics about Luke Skywalker coming back (because Snoke fears Luke; a Jedi Master could cause all kinds of trouble). Hux (who is a fanatic and just wants to destroy the Republic) persuades Snoke that the only way to be safe from Skywalker is if they destroy the Resistance, and the only way to destroy the Resistance is to cut off their support from the Republic, and the only way to do that is to attack the Republic.

Hux then uses claims about the Republic's support for the Resistance in his speech justifying mass murder. "At this very moment, in a system far from here the New Republic lies to the Galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance."

So... yeah... politics.

All that is well and good and makes complete sense but there is nothing whatsoever in any of the films that I can recall that supports a word of it. How could the ordinary punter know ANY of that when he sits down in the cinema with his drink and his popcorn? I'm fairly switched on and I certainly didn't. Where in the story that I sat in the dark and watched are the "centrists" mentioned? Where are the "populist faction"? The "Galactic Concordance"? Nope, not convinced that's in it either.

Don't get me wrong everything you put there makes complete sense to me. It would have a been a much better story than The Force Awakens or at least it could have been part of the plot. They could even have put it in a simplified version in the opening title crawl just to explain how the First Order has arisen.

I guess we can assume the New Republic's military was destroyed in the attack of the Star Killer base? Yet another thing that was easy to explain but they just didn't bother.

55 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

She probably knows him as that guy who threw away an entire bomber wing wastefully and just got demoted for it. Given that the attack shouldn’t have even achieved the objective in the first place and involved Poe not getting fired on by a First Order fleet, he’d be seen as incompetent at best and a top suspect at worst.

That's a good point too. I don't see too many military commanders getting forgiven when they disobey direct orders and get soldiers/pilots killed needlessly. He's lucky he just got slap and a demotion. They court martial most folks who disobey orders. Some small guerrilla fighters probably just execute insubordinate commanders.

It certainly fosters the idea that Holdo wouldn't want to risk information for their ONLY chance of escape with a guy who doesn't even obey basic military command.

This is the same character btw that mutinied and almost caused a complete mission failure as well as the deaths of the entire crew.

Personally, I think Holdo was in the right. 100% Maybe even not strict enough. Poe certainly wouldn't be allowed to lead afterwards either. He killed a lot of people with poor decision making and a lack of discipline.

38 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

That's a good point too. I don't see too many military commanders getting forgiven when they disobey direct orders and get soldiers/pilots killed needlessly. He's lucky he just got slap and a demotion. They court martial most folks who disobey orders. Some small guerrilla fighters probably just execute insubordinate commanders.

It certainly fosters the idea that Holdo wouldn't want to risk information for their ONLY chance of escape with a guy who doesn't even obey basic military command.

This is the same character btw that mutinied and almost caused a complete mission failure as well as the deaths of the entire crew.

Personally, I think Holdo was in the right. 100% Maybe even not strict enough. Poe certainly wouldn't be allowed to lead afterwards either. He killed a lot of people with poor decision making and a lack of discipline.

Yes so why then take the middle path that literally causes all the problems? Either trust him and tell him what's going on or lock him up as a dangerous loose cannon who can't obey orders. Instead she does neither and chooses to do everything she possibly can to provoke him to mutiny.

Just now, Bolshevik6 said:

Yes so why then take the middle path that literally causes all the problems? Either trust him and tell him what's going on or lock him up as a dangerous loose cannon who can't obey orders. Instead she does neither and chooses to do everything she possibly can to cause a mutiny.

Well think about the tone on board that ship too. Trapped. Low of fuel. Command is disrupted. **** near hopeless. Poe is considered a hero. The crew looked up to him (look how many were willing to join a mutiny without any real evidence of a better plan!) He had just destroyed a dreadnought. Most of the enlisted may not be thinking big picture and likely needed that kind of person to maintain morale. If it were me, I'd have locked him up immediately after taking command, but I also recognize that doing so creates a morale problem, had she done that she could have caused a more explosive mutiny, ruining any chance they had.

She had to keep Poe out of the stockade, to keep the crew calm enough to press forward, but also maintain the security of the plan by keeping information on a need to know basis.

Really the tension of maintaining command and executing the plan had to be tremendous. They had so little room for error.

44 minutes ago, Bolshevik6 said:

All that is well and good and makes complete sense but there is nothing whatsoever in any of the films that I can recall that supports a word of it. How could the ordinary punter know ANY of that when he sits down in the cinema with his drink and his popcorn? I'm fairly switched on and I certainly didn't. Where in the story that I sat in the dark and watched are the "centrists" mentioned? Where are the "populist faction"? The "Galactic Concordance"? Nope, not convinced that's in it either.

Don't get me wrong everything you put there makes complete sense to me. It would have a been a much better story than The Force Awakens or at least it could have been part of the plot. They could even have put it in a simplified version in the opening title crawl just to explain how the First Order has arisen.

I guess we can assume the New Republic's military was destroyed in the attack of the Star Killer base? Yet another thing that was easy to explain but they just didn't bother.

This whole trilogy of trilogies is poorly thought out. I mean in the first Star Wars, we don't even know how the Imperial Senate works or why it was significant that the last remnants of the old republic had been swept away. Why did Princess Leia think she had some sort of immunity? Heck, we don't even know for sure whether she is a rebel sympathizer until the end of the movie! What was the old republic anyway? It's not explained in any useful detail. What is the alliance? Who are they allied with? It's all completely opaque, and it could just be spelled out, but it isn't. That's lazy storytelling, right?

This would all have been solved if they would have shot the movies in chronological order. Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith together give us the background necessary to understand what happens in all the subsequent films.

Or maybe the sort of embedded storytelling that emphasizes the characters and only hints at the setting is intended. Maybe what matters is the relationships among the characters because those relationships supercede the grand schemes of the political setting. Luke's triumph at the end of Return of the Jedi isn't a geopolitical victory, it is a personal one. He is trying to redeem his father. When Darth Vader dies, he doesn't ask Luke to proclaim his sorrow to the galaxy, he asks him to tell his sister. Perhaps one of the reasons that Episodes 1-3 aren't quite as good is because the grand schemes began to upstage the relationships which were intended to drive the stories. Anakin falling to the dark side to save his wife seems small when you consider the final result: thousands of Jedi slaughtered, the complete corruption of the government, and the subsequent enslavement of a galaxy. Maybe leaving the setting as background is better for these movies.

Holdo's a bit like the opposition Labour Party here. Lots of their supporters are happy we are leaving the European Union. Lots of them aren't. At election time the leadership tried to keep the peace and take a middle course that pleased everybody. They ended up annoying everyone!!!

A case of art reflecting reality?

NB that's merely an observation on art, real life and human reaction. I'm not trying to divert an interesting discussion about Star Wars into politics. Here is not the place, I'm very aware of that.

2 minutes ago, Bolshevik6 said:

Holdo's a bit like the opposition Labour Party here. Lots of their supporters are happy we are leaving the European Union. Lots of them aren't. At election time the leadership tried to keep the peace and take a middle course that pleased everybody. They ended up annoying everyone!!!

A case of art reflecting reality?

I think so. In some manner at least. It seems to me movies often reflect a little bit of the issues of the era in them.

In universe though I think she was just in a desperate position. She knew what she needed to do to save everyone, and she evaluated the biggest risks to the success of the mission. Treading water is a bad plan, but sometimes it's the least bad plan. Had she told Poe the plan sooner, there's a chance he'd have done the same thing anyways, he had the plan for Finn and Rose in his head as a more viable option, and he's a hothead after all. I don't think abandoning the Raddus was gonna go over smooth any way he heard it. (Consider the scene where he discovered the shuttles were being fueled, he was so irate he didn't even seek the plan behind it, just jumped to conclusions.) Had she locked him up, it would have created a rift between the enlisted and the leadership, possibly causing a panic or a coup, also coincidentally causing the plan to fail and killing everyone.

In the situation, I don't know that there were better options.

1 hour ago, Bolshevik6 said:

Holdo's a bit like the opposition Labour Party here.

Agreed: Holdo is the best person to lead the resistance.

12 hours ago, Bolshevik6 said:

I didn't complain about "female characters". I complained about Rey being good at everything; ace pilot, great swordswoman and good with the Force. Leia is ridiculous IMO and I stand by what I said, what possible reason could Holdo have for not telling Poe the plan? Those plot holes all happened to have female characters at the centre of them. Don't blame me, blame the screenwriters.

Is it PC? Depends on what your view of political correctness is. Are many of the heroes women and non-white? Yes but not all. Are many of the villains white men? Yes but not all. Personally I think it is a bit politically correct but I could live with that if the movies didn't have plot holes you could drive a train through and the first wasn't just a repeat of what we got in 1977. I'm a bit more critical at the age of 54 then I was at the age of nearly 12.

If the films have "bingo cards" there's probably a very good reason for that. The new films get a free pass for a lot of silliness and bad writing because it's Star Wars.

Ok boomer

3 minutes ago, ninclouse2000 said:

Ok boomer

I was born in 1965. I'm not sure what a boomer is. Something to do with baby boomers? If it's a compliment thank you very much. If it's an insult well I don't really care, it's the internet, I don't know you.

11 hours ago, RobertK said:

This whole trilogy of trilogies is poorly thought out. I mean in the first Star Wars, we don't even know how the Imperial Senate works or why it was significant that the last remnants of the old republic had been swept away. Why did Princess Leia think she had some sort of immunity? Heck, we don't even know for sure whether she is a rebel sympathizer until the end of the movie! What was the old republic anyway? It's not explained in any useful detail. What is the alliance? Who are they allied with? It's all completely opaque, and it could just be spelled out, but it isn't. That's lazy storytelling, right?

This would all have been solved if they would have shot the movies in chronological order. Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith together give us the background necessary to understand what happens in all the subsequent films.

Or maybe the sort of embedded storytelling that emphasizes the characters and only hints at the setting is intended. Maybe what matters is the relationships among the characters because those relationships supercede the grand schemes of the political setting. Luke's triumph at the end of Return of the Jedi isn't a geopolitical victory, it is a personal one. He is trying to redeem his father. When Darth Vader dies, he doesn't ask Luke to proclaim his sorrow to the galaxy, he asks him to tell his sister. Perhaps one of the reasons that Episodes 1-3 aren't quite as good is because the grand schemes began to upstage the relationships which were intended to drive the stories. Anakin falling to the dark side to save his wife seems small when you consider the final result: thousands of Jedi slaughtered, the complete corruption of the government, and the subsequent enslavement of a galaxy. Maybe leaving the setting as background is better for these movies.

The problem is though, the sequel trilogy didn't tell enough.

At least when the Imperial officers mention the Senate will cause trouble, and then it is let slip the Senate was dissolved, we get enough of a hint at the politics to get a general idea what is going on without drawn out debates over trade route and treaties.

Sequel trilogy however have us nothing. They could have done more to mention the republic's hands were tied in politics and inaction, they could have mentioned the possibility of a mole over hyperspace tracking (In fact I think it would have served the story better if that was the case) however they didnt give us those nuggets that hint at something bigger, just pointless subplots and stupid incompetence from both sides.

The possibility of a mole was left on the cutting room floor. Saddly the entire Cantobite sequence was not. Double fail right there.

When did agent kallus join the FO?

15 hours ago, Bolshevik6 said:

I was born in 1965. I'm not sure what a boomer is. Something to do with baby boomers? If it's a compliment thank you very much. If it's an insult well I don't really care, it's the internet, I don't know you.

I 100% do not believe you.