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Is Star War's "First Order" a massive narrative blunder?

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Maybe but the story is Kylo. He's much more fleshed out already than Vader maybe ever was in the OT? Interested to see where his arc goes. The FO stuff is really just window dressing i suppose

This is what should be taken away from Episode VII. It's about Kylo and Rey.

That being said the WTF happened in the 30 years in between for the movie and the movie going audience was filled with many wtfs. It was my chief complaint as soon as I left the theater on opening night.

Not to say it doesn't actually make sense as I've read the novels, and honestly Disney and the writers put the world together quite nicely. Way better than the old EU which wasn't as inner connected.

That being said it mean jack all for the movie going Audience. Hopefully VIII and IX help focus more on Kylo, Rey, Smoke, Luke and the Force Jedi/Sith thing with the FO stuff more as set dressing in the movies at least.
 
After losing Starkiller Base I really hope the First Order is extremely damaged by it.
For the love of God don't give me "The First Order Strikes Back" seriously they should be weaker than the OT Rebels at this point.

I don't see why they should be that weak after losing one (albeit major) weapon. The Empire spanned hundreds of planets and had a massive force. Getting rid of the Emperor wouldn't make all those forces just disappear.

They're far more likely to either reform under new leadership or under several different leaders.
 
In a vacuum (pun not intended) I actually liked Starkiller for the sheer grandiose absurdity of it. It's totally a Star Wars thing, through and through.

I agree though that it was too repetitive and rushed. And that suddenly destroying a bunch of planets with no screen time was just plain awful scripting.

With just a little bit of tweaking the First Order and the general shape of the galaxy could have been communicated much better and established the proper backdrop for the primary narrative in a more satisfying way.
 
I had a feeling that as soon as I brought up a comparison to Lord of the Rings, I'd get a bunch of people taking it literally and telling me how it's nothing like that.

Look, my point was that getting upset about not having everything explained, resolved, and shown to you in part one of a trilogy is silly. TFA is just part one. Maybe consider letting the trilogy play out before getting pissy about how much the overarching story sucks.
 
All is takes is a Snoke to get people bitching about Wookies and Mon Calamari taking all the jobs to get parts of the galaxy to want it to go back to 30 years ago like it was under Regan, I mean Palpatine.

Closer to America winning the Revolutionary War and then a small group of Brits who stayed here build a massive warship in the Atlantic that nobody knows exists and then blow up Washington DC and we start the Revolutionary War again.
 
I have a couple of problems that just arise from the fact that they seem to be space racists.

a) Who is still working for the Empire after everything is revealed (two fucking Death Stars?) and the Emperor is killed and revealed to be a Sith Lord? Are these people just fundamentally evil?

b) Where do they find any sort of resources? Raw recruits to brainwash, more Kyber crystals or whatever they're called, more steel, more food to feed a giant brainwashed army, etc, etc. Are they keeping slaves somewhere to mine resources and build these ships and death star weapons? Do they turn dead people into soylent green and use it to feed their billions of stormtroopers?
 
Closer to America winning the Revolutionary War and then a small group of Brits who stayed here build a massive warship in the Atlantic that nobody knows exists and then blow up Washington DC and we start the Revolutionary War again.

WW1 to WW2

I have a couple of problems that just arise from the fact that they seem to be space racists.

a) Who is still working for the Empire after everything is revealed (two fucking Death Stars?) and the Emperor is killed and revealed to be a Sith Lord? Are these people just fundamentally evil?

b) Where do they find any sort of resources? Raw recruits to brainwash, more Kyber crystals or whatever they're called, more steel, more food to feed a giant brainwashed army, etc, etc. Are they keeping slaves somewhere to mine resources and build these ships and death star weapons? Do they turn dead people into soylent green and use it to feed their billions of stormtroopers?

A) Yes, they're evil. They're encouraged to be so. Trained to be so. The Emperor facilitated an Only the Strong Survive mentality throughout his organization. They double cross and murder allies for position constantly. So they don't just change because the Emperor is dead.

B) Some planets benefited more from Empire rule than others so they wouldn't outright abandon it, emperor or no. And the galaxy is massive. Their is more than enough resources around to sustain The First Order as The New Republic wouldn't have control over everything. Being a republic, many planets could simply refuse to join and The New Republic would just let them be. This is was the case under The Republic leading into Ep 1.
 
Shhh, don't you know we're not allowed to criticize until the end of 2019, when all the movies are out? /s

I have no faith that VIII and IX will be anything but rehashes of the themes present in Empire and Jedi, it'll just differ by the characters and I don't care about any of them, especially on the First Order. Phasma is Nu-Boba, Hux is an annoying prick, and Kylo is awful.

I'd rather Finn kill Phasma, Poe blow up Hux, and Rey slice Kylo in half while the FO collapses and then do something really unique with Snoke and the Knights.
 
I have a couple of problems that just arise from the fact that they seem to be space racists.

a) Who is still working for the Empire after everything is revealed (two fucking Death Stars?) and the Emperor is killed and revealed to be a Sith Lord? Are these people just fundamentally evil?

b) Where do they find any sort of resources? Raw recruits to brainwash, more Kyber crystals or whatever they're called, more steel, more food to feed a giant brainwashed army, etc, etc. Are they keeping slaves somewhere to mine resources and build these ships and death star weapons? Do they turn dead people into soylent green and use it to feed their billions of stormtroopers?

The Imperial hardliners who went on an exodus into the Unknown Regions rather than agree to the Galactic Concordance were the most brainwashed and loyal, who believed the Rebels and therefore New Republic were terrorists and that Palpatine had been the lawful ruler. The Death Stars were necessary deterrents like atomic weaponry, and Alderaan had to be destroyed to show how far the Empire would go to preserve peace. Lost Stars covers this pretty well, even featuring an Alderaanian Imperial who has to rationalize the destruction of his homeworld.

They also probably either thought any word about Palpatine being a Sith was propaganda or didn't care because it's some thousand year old religious thing. Some of them were dark side worshippers though like Yupe Tashu.
 
I don't see why they should be that weak after losing one (albeit major) weapon. The Empire spanned hundreds of planets and had a massive force. Getting rid of the Emperor wouldn't make all those forces just disappear.

They're far more likely to either reform under new leadership or under several different leaders.

The First Order is an extremely small group of the Empire that retreated into the outskirts of the galaxy.
All the support that kept the Empire going for years is almost completely for the New Republic within a couple years.
Starkiller would have been a massive undetaking for even the Galactic Empire but the First Order eventually accomplishes it.
To me it would be ridiculous for the First Order to have more than maybe a system or 2 (5-10 planets).
Also the First Order isn't like the Rebel Alliance was with going around and getting support, they are just out there bidding their time on Starkiller

The Rebel Alliance actually had support from "inner planets" among other things.

It will just ruin for me if somehow this shitty faction suddenly has all this power when The Republic had basically said "whatever" about them(even freaking Mon Mothma)
I really don't want to see The First Order suddenly with hundreds of Star Destroyers and such.
The Resistance should have the full support of all New Republic member planets(infinitely more than support the First Order)
The Resistance being underdogs after TFA just doesn't work.

They could always pull some convoluted crap like "The banking clan was secretly funding them"
But i'd hate that even even more.
 
Yeah but what are they Resisting? It's just supposed to sound like "rebellion," despite their being affiliated with the group in power. God this movie was so desperate to be ANH reborn. I love the new trio and bb8 but I like the movie they're in less and less each day.


Edit:
No problems with the remnants of the empire being around. But I don't see why the republic wouldn't put the full hurt of their forces on them rather than fund this "resistance." Also Rey talks about the resistance in exactly the same tones Luke used about the rebellion in OT. As if it were a group of brave people rising up against the evil establishment. Which it isn't.

Edit2: also why wasn't baton trooper just Phasma. Would have put a nice bow on her rivalry with Finn and made that encounter feel less random. So many script-level issues with TFA; it bums me out.
 
The Imperial hardliners who went on an exodus into the Unknown Regions rather than agree to the Galactic Concordance were the most brainwashed and loyal, who believed the Rebels and therefore New Republic were terrorists and that Palpatine had been the lawful ruler. The Death Stars were necessary deterrents like atomic weaponry, and Alderaan had to be destroyed to show how far the Empire would go to preserve peace. Lost Stars covers this pretty well, even featuring an Alderaanian Imperial who has to rationalize the destruction of his homeworld.

They also probably either thought any word about Palpatine being a Sith was propaganda or didn't care because it's some thousand year old religious thing. Some of them were dark side worshippers though like Yupe Tashu.
Yeah, I know about the book. But after decades of space racism, it just seems weird to still be a part of it after the two death stars, millions/billions of alien deaths, and everything else that happens unless you really are a piece of shit space racist who just hates non-humans for some reason. lol

But even then, where do they get the logistical support to maintain a huge army, space navy, AND build a gigantic super weapon in less than 20-30 years if they're supposed to be some kind of shadowey thing on the run?
 
The fact that a janitor knows the details of a super weapon, and the weakness to it is very similar to the old one.
Literally the plot is that because he was a janitor he had zero idea about how to destroy the death star, he lied so that he could go on the trip and rescue Rey.
 
But even then, where do they get the logistical support to maintain a huge army, space navy, AND build a gigantic super weapon in less than 20-30 years if they're supposed to be some kind of shadowey thing on the run?

We don't really know yet, other than that they got some amount of funding through controlling spice cartels and other organized crime rings. Starkiller may have been an Imperial project that they finished, but that's just speculation. It's highly likely that Starkiller is the planet Ilum, which was filled with kyber crystals and which the Empire was stripping in the Ahsoka novel which takes place 1 year after RotS (she saw from space that there were deep gashes in the planet - obviously they were mining for crystals for the Death Star, but what if they decided to just transform the planet?).
 
Couldn't disagree more. I love politics. Best thing in the prequels and the new trilogy should embrace it. The First Order was an awful idea. EU did it better. They should be a ragtag force like the rebels used to be.
Why would a huge galaxy spanning army turn into a ragtag group of rebels?
 
To be honest I had more of a problem with the "new Republic/senate/resistance". Like... what the fuck was Leiah doing the last twenty years? Running the Republic into the ground?

IMO the Republic is and always was useless as a governing body. Too large and tied down by bureaucracy to stop the invasion of a single planet (Naboo) and fast forward seven movies later and they still can't do anything.

#teamEmpire

But even then, where do they get the logistical support to maintain a huge army, space navy, AND build a gigantic super weapon in less than 20-30 years if they're supposed to be some kind of shadowey thing on the run?

It's possible the weapon was a secret project the Empire was working on prior to their fall. Rogue One
Jyn and leader guy found evidence/names of several secret projects when extracting the Death Star plans.
 
The First Order is an extremely small group of the Empire that retreated into the outskirts of the galaxy.
All the support that kept the Empire going for years is almost completely for the New Republic within a couple years.
Starkiller would have been a massive undetaking for even the Galactic Empire but the First Order eventually accomplishes it.
To me it would be ridiculous for the First Order to have more than maybe a system or 2 (5-10 planets).
Also the First Order isn't like the Rebel Alliance was with going around and getting support, they are just out there bidding their time on Starkiller

The Rebel Alliance actually had support from "inner planets" among other things.

It will just ruin for me if somehow this shitty faction suddenly has all this power when The Republic had basically said "whatever" about them(even freaking Mon Mothma)
I really don't want to see The First Order suddenly with hundreds of Star Destroyers and such.
The Resistance should have the full support of all New Republic member planets(infinitely more than support the First Order)
The Resistance being underdogs after TFA just doesn't work.

They could always pull some convoluted crap like "The banking clan was secretly funding them"
But i'd hate that even even more.

This isn't accurate. The Empire doesn't even formally surrender until 5 years after Yavin. The First Order consists of Empire holdouts and sympathists (including some that intially participates in The New Republic) and they built themselves up using the many systems they discovered in the Unknow Regions.

They aren't just hanging out on Starkiller. They were rebuilding amd rearming in the far reaches of space over the course of 30 years.


To be honest I had more of a problem with the "new Republic/senate/resistance". Like... what the fuck was Leiah doing the last twenty years? Running the Republic into the ground?

IMO the Republic is and always was useless as a governing body. Too large and tied down by bureaucracy to stop the invasion of a single planet (Naboo) and fast forward seven movies later and they still can't do anything.

#teamEmpire


It's possible the weapon was a secret project the Empire was working on prior to their fall. Rogue One
Jyn and leader guy found evidence/names of several secret projects when extracting the Death Star plans.

You're right that the Republic gets bogged down. That's what allows The First Order to rebuild and why Leia leaves The New Republic to form The Resistance.

And again Starkiller IS most likely the results of already existing secret projects/plans that the Empire was already working on. The existing leadership of The First Order consists of mamy former high ranking Empire officers.
 
Ultimately I really couldn't tell if The First Order was a new Empire that controlled the galaxy, or if they were a wannabe rump state. The general status of the galaxy as presented in the movie was indiscernible.
 
I think they need a movie between VI and VII. Look at the end of VI with the celebrations and statue falling etc. Then right from the start of VII it's back to dark side oppression with little explanation. VII is so vague about everything I think it'll be a better movie when other stories are told around it.
 
To be honest I had more of a problem with the "new Republic/senate/resistance". Like... what the fuck was Leiah doing the last twenty years? Running the Republic into the ground?

IMO the Republic is and always was useless as a governing body. Too large and tied down by bureaucracy to stop the invasion of a single planet (Naboo) and fast forward seven movies later and they still can't do anything.

Leia wasn't the chancellor, she was a senator of the Populist faction that wanted a smaller government to prevent another Empire from happening. From all appearances the New Republic worked out fairly well for the first 25 years or so with some issues patrolling space lanes due to the cut back fleet size, which allowed for a growth in organized crime in the periphery. However, partisan bickering between the Centrists and Populists eventually came to a head since they couldn't agree on how to approach it. It's sort of reminiscent of the US under the Articles of Confederation and the debates over the powers of the government.
 
The Empire could have continuously getting their asses kicked after the Battle of Endor until they're a the new rebels.
So all the leaders and stuff would've forgotten how they were keeping the empire under control with their massive army?
 
Yeah but what are they Resisting? It's just supposed to sound like "rebellion," despite their being affiliated with the group in power. God this movie was so desperate to be ANH reborn. I love the new trio and bb8 but I like the movie they're in less and less each day.


Edit:
No problems with the remnants of the empire being around. But I don't see why the republic wouldn't put the full hurt of their forces on them rather than fund this "resistance." Also Rey talks about the resistance in exactly the same tones Luke used about the rebellion in OT. As if it were a group of brave people rising up against the evil establishment. Which it isn't.

Edit2: also why wasn't baton trooper just Phasma. Would have put a nice bow on her rivalry with Finn and made that encounter feel less random. So many script-level issues with TFA; it bums me out.

One of the things is the republic doesn't want to be seen as a military force. It's one of the things Mon Mothma tries to stress post battle of Jakku. The republic should be seen a domocracy not just an Empire replacement via soldiers.

The factions then splinter in the newly formed Senate into people who want more atonomy, people who want a strong central government, and those sorta in-between.

The New Republic never actually funds the Resistance openly.

It's also worth noting that while the Rebels continue to win key victories even after the blowup of the 2nd Death Star they aren't a large enough military force to be everywhere to sorta keep the peace even before Mon Momtha tries to disassemble them.

That being said like I said before on a Macro new Star Wars universe scale this all works out pretty well if you read and watch everything.

On a micro level the wide galactic state of affairs and the FO are probably the worst part of EVII in the way it's all handled as set dressing for Rey/Kylo.
 
This isn't accurate. The Empire doesn't even formally surrender until 5 years after Yavin. The First Order consists of Empire holdouts and sympathists (including some that intially participates in The New Republic) and they built themselves up using the many systems they discovered in the Unknow Regions.

They aren't just hanging out on Starkiller. They were rebuilding amd rearming in the far reaches of space over the course of 30 years.

Where is this from? I haven't read anything besides Twilight Company, Lost Stars and Aftermath(well New Dawn but that isn't relevant).
 
Where is this from? I haven't read anything besides Twilight Company, Lost Stars and Aftermath(well New Dawn but that isn't relevant).

You should read Bloodline if you care about events between VI and VII. It specifically goes into how things are playing out politically and the formation of the FO.
 
You should read Bloodline if you care about events between VI and VII. It specifically goes into how things are playing out politically and the formation of the FO.

Plus it had direct input from Rian Johnson, like the Populist and Centrist factions. That gives me hope that he's putting more thought into the political angle than JJ did.
 
Presumably Ep VIII will fix a few of these problems. Phasma's alleged to have a much larger role (which makes sense, you don't hire a name, actor or actress, just to stuff them in a suit, wholly masked, for a bit role in one film, even if that film is Star Wars, they've used plenty of no-names to fill the suits), and one of the rumored scripts for Episode VIII was asking the question of what would happen with the New Republic after it was beheaded by the Starkiller attack.

Episode VII was hamstrung by the need to recreate the conditions of Episode IV in a post-Endor universe, but do so in a way that did not shit all over the victories of RotJ (for instance, by having the Emperor's death be meaningless, the Empire continues strong as ever but ruled by a regular military dictator), but the differences in the universe do not have to be squandered even if Hosni Prime and most of the New Republic government was blown up.
 
That stuff will always be major pet peeves for me, especially considering how much of the film gets so much stuff right. The soft reboot aspect of TFA and the general retelling of the story/character beats from ANH never became an issue for me (if anything some are the best parts), but the faction stuff and Starkiller Base is so transparently recycled stuff with new names thrown on top that it takes me out of the film more than it should.

Said it a while ago, but I would've loved it if they'd had worked the Star Forge into the new canon and made it a major factor for the whole trilogy, not just TFA. I mean, tt'd still follow the trope of the villains having a superweapon, but it's functionality, design and presence would be different enough that it isn't just literal space laser x3.
 
As far as the wait for the trilogy to be completed stuff goes, Lucasfilm seems to be going the "read the books" route so I don't expect this suddenly correct itself in 8 and 9. You'll get enough to guesstimate but the real answers will be found in the books and on Wookiepeida. Thank god for Wookiepedia.
 
I wish they'd gone with the idea from that one draft with Starkiller being the weaponized "Sith home world" that the NR and FO were feuding over. It would have made a lot more sense.
 
I love when people pin all of TFA's faults on the prequels for some reason. People really will blame Lucas for anything.

Like, I'm an adult. I don't need to be coddled with a shit ton of OT imagery to get me to care about a new SW trilogy.
 
I basically agree. The movie's like A New Hope but makes less sense.

What's frustrating is that you can string together almost all of the same scenes without the Death Star thingy. It's not like the planets that get blown up matter. The superweapon is meant to add stakes but the stakes are the survival of the New Republic which we never see. Destroying/protecting it is not even the primary motivation of any of the important characters.

The movie still works almost as-is if the overall plot is about Leia being one of the only people who's really worried about the rise of the Sith. The New Republic isn't willing to have a huge war with the remnants of the Empire because the Empire hasn't done anything yet and in the course of the movie actually doesn't do much of anything to make itself clearly a threat. Leia is obviously concerned about this in part because Ren is her son. The whole search-for-Luke plot can stay as-is and Rey and Finn can get involved in exactly the same way. Finn's motivation leans more heavily on knowing how awful Ren is. Han helps out because Ren is his son and Luke is his friend and Leia is his ex-wife. The proximate cause of the final confrontation is probably about how Ren figured out where Luke is.
 
Everything about the First Order was complete and utter trash. I bet the movie would be 1000x better if you removed their presence completely from the film.

Lifeless characters, contrived existence, recycle plot points, and complete jobbers. Absolutely terrible in all aspects. Hopefully Kylo Ren kills every single one of them in the future movies. That's the only way they can salvage that stupid mess.

JJ Abrams is a hack too. Why that man continue to gets work is beyond me.
 
No issue with the First Order. I actually enjoy the historical parallels of the dangers of what emerges in a power vacuum after toppling a totalitarian regime.

Starkiller Base on the other hand. Ugh. Recycling the Death Star trope was cringe enough but the way they just destroyed several planets and billions of people with seemingly no emotional build up beforehand or emotional reaction afterwards was a major mis-hit. Alderaan hits 50 times harder than those planets combined. Couldn't they have taken out some uninhabited planets as a show of force instead?

I still really like TFA though. Feels like some of the extreme hate here is a bit of a "throwing the baby out with the bath water" overreaction to a few missteps in the movie. Comparing it to The Phantom Menace... nah.
 
It's Star Wars, man. People want Star Destroyers, Stormtroopers, and TIE Fighters. You can't have that without resurrecting the Empire in some fashion. Even in the prequels and Old Republic stuff they basically just invent older equivalents to the tropes, vehicles, and art design of the Original Trilogy.

The third Death Star is really the only major misstep I see in the First Order scenario. It was already stretching things to have a second Death Star in ROTJ. Introducing a third just seems phenomenally lazy.
 
Here's the thing: TFA did probably spend too much of its energy basically apologizing for the prequels by being a retread of Ep 4, but retreading that general plot in and of itself wasn't actually a bad thing if you believe in the whole Star Wars "ring theory" thing. It basically points out how the plots of each of the prequels sort of followed a pattern similar but not identical to the OT movies. Phantom Menace followed the same general plot beats as Ep 4 and TFA but was more subtle about it. TFA just decided to be blunt with it and use it as a way to apologize for the prequels.

I don't like the fact that a lot of information about the First Order has to be read in comics and other media outside TFA. I don't really like Disney going for the new expanded universe from the get go. Ep 4 didn't have that when Lucas was writing it. He had to have that movie, by itself, explain enough of the universe for the Empire and the Rebellion to seem plausible to viewers. TFA could have packed in more information about how the First Order happened and, really, how the galaxy has changed in the 30 years since Jedi. Not a whole lot, just a few lines here and there.
 
Yep.

You didn't even mention the fact that they managed to amass a mega empire in less than 30 years while the galaxy was seemingly at peace.

Rogue One kicks its butt.
 
I think they need a movie between VI and VII. Look at the end of VI with the celebrations and statue falling etc. Then right from the start of VII it's back to dark side oppression with little explanation. VII is so vague about everything I think it'll be a better movie when other stories are told around it.
The fact that it needs that is fucking sad tho
 
It's not "yet another Empire", it's the same Empire just repackaged and after decades of rebuilding under a new leader.

Which I kind of like because the abject stupidity of Return of the Jedi really doesn't explain why the Empire would just go away because they blew up another space station and threw the old man down an elevator shaft. It would continue in some form.

Great point actually
 
I think they need a movie between VI and VII. Look at the end of VI with the celebrations and statue falling etc. Then right from the start of VII it's back to dark side oppression with little explanation. VII is so vague about everything I think it'll be a better movie when other stories are told around it.

Blame the ROTJ special edition for that. The Empire was more than just the Emperor and another Death Star.
 
TFA had more than a few narrative blunders and yes, The First Order was one of them. The film does a piss poor job laying out the current state of the galaxy.
 
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