I just want an enemy faction that feels hyper-competent. We only felt that with a couple characters within the ST, FO as a whole had cool toys and underwhelming military acumen.

3 hours ago, dsul413 said:

I just want an enemy faction that feels hyper-competent. We only felt that with a couple characters within the ST, FO as a whole had cool toys and underwhelming military acumen.

me too. Both the empire AND the FO, seems to be FILLED to the brim, with incompetent, corrupt morons.

For me, the EU is all that there is. Was it perfect? Of course not; show me a licenced universe that is. It was, however, consistently better than disney, actually embraced the spirit of Star Wars, respected the original characters while creating many new ones who interacted with the old rather than replacing them and had a more logical internal continuity (yes I know that there were issues, but they made the effort to write bridging stories that fixed most of these issues and none were as head-scratchingly logic breaking as the reset that turned episode 7 into episode 4).

In addition, Lucas may not have developed most of the EU story ideas but he vetted, authorised and controlled everything (the evidence for this far outweighs the single quote that said he didn't). It may not be the main story he envisioned but it was still very much his story and his universe.

On 12/25/2019 at 6:01 PM, dsul413 said:

I just want an enemy faction that feels hyper-competent. We only felt that with a couple characters within the ST, FO as a whole had cool toys and underwhelming military acumen.

The FO's MO was basically "Empire... but Bigger". That didn't just extend to the tech (Upsilon > Lambda, Starkiller > Death Star, Supremacy > Executor etc), but also in terms of incompetence.

His high competency is what made Thrawn such a good bad guy. He isn't some bumbling idiot in either old or new canon.

I think that is one of the more fundamental structural issues with the new trilogy. The FO are kind of ridiculous. They turn them up to eleven at the start but then show them under command of petulant child Kylo. The things juxtapose quite poorly. They take all the venom out of Hux at the start of Last Jedi with the lazy "can you hear me now joke."

I maintain that the popularity of Rogue One is due largely to the last five minutes where we see Vader being highly competent.

One of the things I think Rebels did well is building up to the Empire as nasty. They didn't start with them burning Tarkintown in the first episode and right after show the leader of the raid throwing a tantrum. The series sometimes makes the Stormtroopers sort of Keystone Cops but usually resulting from the cleverness of the heroes. And the heroes do end up captured. And the troopers are usually some level of competent when the "real" villains like Vader, Tarkin, Pryce, or Thrawn are in charge who are typically shown as capable.

They brought The Emperor back as much because they hadn't any competent villains left after killing Snoke and making Kylo the fool with Luke's mind trick.

I said after seeing The Last Jedi that I thought the best potential for the franchise moving forward was stories set in and around the Galactic Civil War era.

Stories that flesh out and build in the universe, not necessarily including OT characters or settings, but giving different points of view of the conflict and it's effect on the galaxy. Maybe even seeing some of the lesser known characters in action.

Rogue One was my starting point for this line of thought - it added to the story of A New Hope without taking anything away. Rebels was another good example, and The Mandalorian seems to be taking that path as well. I'm obviously looking forward to the Kenobi and Cassian Andor series as well, and seeing what they can deliver.

We're in an era now where TV can legitimately compete with cinema for story and spectacle, as shown by the likes of Game of Thrones, Westworld and The Witcher. That's not to say that the franchise doesn't have a future in cinema (which would be clearly wrong), but TV's longer form storytelling may be the way forward for now.

3 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

I said after seeing The Last Jedi that I thought the best potential for the franchise moving forward was stories set in and around the Galactic Civil War era.

Stories that flesh out and build in the universe, not necessarily including OT characters or settings, but giving different points of view of the conflict and it's effect on the galaxy. Maybe even seeing some of the lesser known characters in action.

Rogue One was my starting point for this line of thought - it added to the story of A New Hope without taking anything away. Rebels was another good example, and The Mandalorian seems to be taking that path as well. I'm obviously looking forward to the Kenobi and Cassian Andor series as well, and seeing what they can deliver.

We're in an era now where TV can legitimately compete with cinema for story and spectacle, as shown by the likes of Game of Thrones, Westworld and The Witcher. That's not to say that the franchise doesn't have a future in cinema (which would be clearly wrong), but TV's longer form storytelling may be the way forward for now.

That isn't really moving the franchise forward though is it? That's just trying to hold the franchise in place in the OT era.

To move it forward they needed a very different film than The Force Awakens because all it tried to do was go backwards. And despite obviously wanting to go backwards they were quite unwilling to go backwards to the beginning of Episode 1 with a functioning Jedi Order and re-established Republic which would have at least been some form of forwards from Return of The Jedi. But they were too scared to go there. Too much prequel and politics and EU better put out of its misery.

The memes about Star Wars fans having killed Star Wars are pretty funny to me. The attitude fans are being accused of with those pre-dates even the prequels and is quite apparent with the prequels. Folks can just rationalize it or ignore it easier because of some of the cinematic weaknesses of the movies. Fans weren't accused of killing Star Wars with their reflexive "prequels suck." They caved to that don't-want-anything-except-OT attitude at the outset of all this and now all they have is nothing but the OT.

On 12/25/2019 at 3:15 PM, LTuser said:

me too. Both the empire AND the FO, seems to be FILLED to the brim, with incompetent, corrupt morons.

Most fascists orgs are. That’s what fascism breeds and rewards.

7 hours ago, Frimmel said:

His high competency is what made Thrawn such a good bad guy. He isn't some bumbling idiot in either old or new canon.

I think that is one of the more fundamental structural issues with the new trilogy. The FO are kind of ridiculous. They turn them up to eleven at the start but then show them under command of petulant child Kylo. The things juxtapose quite poorly. They take all the venom out of Hux at the start of Last Jedi with the lazy "can you hear me now joke."

It would be interesting to see HOW MANY Rings, Thrawn could have ran, around Hux and co..

18 minutes ago, LTuser said:

It would be interesting to see HOW MANY Rings, Thrawn could have ran, around Hux and co..

Thrawn also deserves a better villain than Hux.

I would’ve ONLY been happy (if I’m completely honest with myself) if the titles of the final 3 movies were:

Heir To The Empire

Dark Force Rising

The Last Command

Heres to a thank you to the man who made Star Wars REAL for me.... 🍻

"Choices of One" by Daryl Mandryk

14 hours ago, LTuser said:

It would be interesting to see HOW MANY Rings, Thrawn could have ran, around Hux and co..

One, I'd imagine. That's all it would take.

One ring to rule them all.

On 12/25/2019 at 12:01 PM, dsul413 said:

I just want an enemy faction that feels hyper-competent. We only felt that with a couple characters within the ST, FO as a whole had cool toys and underwhelming military acumen.

I've figured out their problem. Everyone is a General, where are the stinking Admirals to actually command ships? These Generals know nothing of space combat.

10 minutes ago, Jo Jo said:

I've figured out their problem. Everyone is a General, where are the stinking Admirals to actually command ships? These Generals know nothing of space combat.

Maybe they all died after the 2nd deathstar blew up?

Something the wife of one of my DND gaming buddies mentioned.. Could Palpaltine's hidden fleet, have possibly been made by the Star-forge, an ancient Sith artifact??

5 hours ago, LTuser said:

Something the wife of one of my DND gaming buddies mentioned.. Could Palpaltine's hidden fleet, have possibly been made by the Star-forge, an ancient Sith artifact??

Could have been, but wasn't. Loyalists in Sienar-jaemus doing the building has already been stated in the books.

Plus, an old star forge would have built ship's using designs from that era, not modified Imperial IIs.

(To be clear, I'd have preferred your idea)

Why woul the older star-forge have just kept with older designs?

On 12/20/2019 at 9:56 PM, KCDodger said:

Honestly, I don't know anymore.

After Rise of Skywalker, I'm not sure it was worth purging the EU anymore.

This had to hurt.

Admittedly, having just stepped out of the theatres... Old EU was a mess of terrible stories and bad writing, but there are some few gems.

New um... extending of the universe looks to be off on the same shaky footing. Individually the new movies were more fun than the prequels movies, more watchable, but the underlying story far less interesting.

I walked out feeling cheated at the end of RoS knowing that if I had tried something like that in my own writing it would never get passed my editor.

And something I wish modern Hollywood would get through their heads... Bigger ships and greater numbers are not the keys to making epic space battles. It's investment, getting the audience to believe the moment is desperate and that things can end in a bad way. I am a Leaf in the Wind, anybody? How can they be jamming us if they don’t know that we’re coming? Heck, one of the most epic space battles in movies involves two ships hardly shooting at each other... Star Trek II. I found the new trilogy space battles flat. I wasn’t for a moment believing anything but the named characters pulling it out without harm. (Rant, rant, rant, grumble, mutter...)

5 hours ago, LagJanson said:

This had to hurt.

I cannot even put it into words.

6 hours ago, LagJanson said:

And something I wish modern Hollywood would get through their heads... Bigger ships and greater numbers are not the keys to making epic space battles. It's investment, getting the audience to believe the moment is desperate and that things can end in a bad way. I am a Leaf in the Wind, anybody? How can they be jamming us if they don’t know that we’re coming? Heck, one of the most epic space battles in movies involves two ships hardly shooting at each other... Star Trek II. I found the new trilogy space battles flat. I wasn’t for a moment believing anything but the named characters pulling it out without harm. (Rant, rant, rant, grumble, mutter...)

Me too. Some of my fave space battles had 3-4 ships a SIDE going at it, lasers blasting at one another.. Not UBER ships, that have maybe what, 3-4 guns each, that shoot (from what we see)..