And yours are "it's easy to hide". Ok. Have a good one and try to stop taking shit so personally.
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Is Star War's "First Order" a massive narrative blunder?
- Thread starter Goodstyle
- Start date
- Status
And yours are "it's easy to hide". Ok. Have a good one and try to stop taking shit so personally.
Yeah and I explained why, it seems clear that you don't understand how many planets are in a galaxy, ignoring the possibility of it being in a different one.
It's established that there are uncharted regions in the galaxy. So if your weapon is literally a planet but with a gun in it, from afar it's going to look like every other planet.
Lmao. Now I don't understand the size of galaxies, because of a conversation over logic (or lack thereof) in SW movies.
Take a deep breath and give it a rest.
The senate made up of "1000 worlds" and you can see how many there were in the chambers.
And so far you haven't actually countered any point and instead are trying to first reduce my argument to "easy to hide" then try to claim an ad hominem attack on your knowledge because I've had to repeat myself about the size of it.
The OT also demonstrated that planets like dagobah exist which was essentially uninhabited. This combined with everything else leaves pretty good evidence that the galaxy in Star Wars at least has roughly a same planet count.
You on the other hand haven't actually provided evidence yet and now resort to "trying to bring logic to Star Wars lol" despite that being your argument in the first place.
*edit:
The 1000 world comment I might be mixing with 1000 generations as well, haven't watched the prequels enough to confirm that quote. But the chamber is massive and does appear to have hundreds of inhabitants represented.
7DollarHagane
Banned
The empire is the dark side of the force manifest in government. Leaders that exploit all the worst human attributes to gain power. Fear, greed, anger, hate. The first order follows this trend.
All the generals and commanders that shrug their shoulders at their superiors being killed off when they fail at some task because they got promoted show this.
All the generals and commanders that shrug their shoulders at their superiors being killed off when they fail at some task because they got promoted show this.
7DollarHagane
Banned
It's almost like if you only watched a new hope you would have no idea who the empire leadership was, what Darth Vader's motivations were, who jabba the hutt is, what the force is, or any of the things alluded to but not shown in the OT.
It's a little disheartening to see how so much of GAF is incapable of interpreting geopolitics and making sense of the universe.
The New Order spawns as a new centralized government under Snoke (presumably) from the old Empire. It's sovereign it's greatly diminished after the Empire's military power was reduced, making the New Republic the new ruling monolithic government. With the Resistance being secretly funded to destabilize TNO while normal diplomatic relations are still being done.
However, the power dynamics in the movie are a bit off by giving us no insight on the Republic and presenting the secret power of the new order without presenting how it masks it to the Galaxy. It being a "rehash" is the laziest criticism of one could make though.
The New Order spawns as a new centralized government under Snoke (presumably) from the old Empire. It's sovereign it's greatly diminished after the Empire's military power was reduced, making the New Republic the new ruling monolithic government. With the Resistance being secretly funded to destabilize TNO while normal diplomatic relations are still being done.
However, the power dynamics in the movie are a bit off by giving us no insight on the Republic and presenting the secret power of the new order without presenting how it masks it to the Galaxy. It being a "rehash" is the laziest criticism of one could make though.
Agent Gibbs
Member
Thats how i think it was meant to be but was not explained at all in the Force Awakens, that narrative fits the movie and you can see that was the aim, i just think its further and needlessly complicated by...
YUP! it seemed utterly pointless to rebrand the Empire, they still control worlds they are still an empire so why The First Order? is it The Firs Order of the Empire? is the name symbolic of the First Order Palpetine gave or something? there is an utter lack of context which makes the name silly
The rebels too to a lesser extent as they should really just be the army of the new republic, there are a few dialogue quotes that suggest its an open secret that the resistance is a front for the New Republic, which then itself further begs the question of why rename them? why not just be Rebels? a terrorist cell that operates in the Imperial controlled space that is not supported by either major factions but the Republic may have sympathies for?
The lack of context with the rebellion/Resistance make the New Republic a throw away mention\and absolutely destroys any meaning to the destruction of 5 nameless worlds - assumed to be republic worlds (deleted scenes not being removed would have helped here).
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
This sounds like a more interesting premise than what we got.
That's assuming the republic knew about it, which it was established they did Not though.
This is silly. This is a concern with "lore" or whatever over good storytelling. All of these things are plenty well-established for what the movie is trying to do.
Watching A New Hope, you know who the Imperial leadership is. It's the Emperor. That's why it's called "the Empire". He's a Bad Guy and clearly has more-or-less absolute power. There used to be a Senate but it just got dissolved. Vader and Tarkin are clearly way up there - moffs like Tarkin are like governors.
Darth Vader doesn't need explicit motivations. He's a Bad Guy too. Probably he just wants to rule the galaxy - you don't need to do much work to get viewers to believe that higher-ups in an evil Empire just like being higher-ups in an evil Empire. He differs from the ranked Imperial leadership in that he's concerned with the Force more than being able to blow up planets. He seems to enjoy demonstrating his superiority. Not a fan of Jedi, who are like good guy versions of him.
Jabba is a crime boss who Han failed by having to dump cargo he was smuggling. He wanted Han to pay him back but he's gotten impatient and has just put a price on his head. What more did you need here? This is such a tiny part of the movie that it's bizarre to even bring him up - the point of this is mainly just to establish Han as a scoundrel who needs money.
There's a lot about the Force, actually. Obi-Wan makes a speech. We see that it can be used in a variety of ways approximating telekinesis and mind control, and it provides a sort of in-tune-ness with the universe that lets Jedi sense significant events and guides their actions to do things like deflect blaster shots blindfolded or make tricky shots.
A New Hope actually would have worked pretty well as a standalone movie. The Force Awakens drops you into a much more confusing world and then makes absolutely central to its plot and characters a whole bunch of questions that it doesn't answer. Even assuming familiarity with the OT it doesn't work nearly as well.
Says the guy posting and obsessively reading a thread about something 99% of the audience who watched TFA don't give a rats ass about. Come on, don't be that guy.
What confused me while watching was really that the resistance felt small and the first order felt powerful. And that's good for the movie, because then there are stakes and all that, but the nagging dissonance of the official government being a small band of fighters versus the defeated subversives having a literal planet that destroys other planets felt weird.
Thinking about it, the problem was starkiller is too big and the resistance is too small. The actual first order, the size of the army, the inexperienced kylo ren being leader, the escope of all that is just right. But then their planet kills planets and it throws off balance.
On the other hand, there is no scene where Leia is on a big palace sorrounded by 10.000 people solving big problems not having time to do what she really wants, that is to find Luke and her son and go off in adventures. Whatever the resistance is, it felt beneath someone like Leia that is important not just in-universe, but also for us. It makes sense for Solo to be a loser, because we expect him to reject success, but Leia should have been portrayed as president or something and through her we should see how big the republic is.
Thinking about it, the problem was starkiller is too big and the resistance is too small. The actual first order, the size of the army, the inexperienced kylo ren being leader, the escope of all that is just right. But then their planet kills planets and it throws off balance.
On the other hand, there is no scene where Leia is on a big palace sorrounded by 10.000 people solving big problems not having time to do what she really wants, that is to find Luke and her son and go off in adventures. Whatever the resistance is, it felt beneath someone like Leia that is important not just in-universe, but also for us. It makes sense for Solo to be a loser, because we expect him to reject success, but Leia should have been portrayed as president or something and through her we should see how big the republic is.
FIrstly, why do we assume the New Republic had the means to deal with the New Order or the remants of the Empire at all? There is never a unified, significant population of non-Empire ruled worlds or soldiers shown in ANY of the OT films - only a rag tag group of rebels with ad-hoc bases and hail mary attack plans. We're left to believe that the Republic needed to be rebuilt as the Empire lost control of the galaxy.
If the New Republic had NO WAY of dealing with what's left with the Empire, it's perfectly feasible that there would be an attempt at a peace treaty or cease fire as the Republic rebuilt itself. Which is, if I'm not mistaken, exactly what is said to have happened.
Well, no Empire on Earth has ever sprawled thousands of light-years. Intelligence must be more questionable when you've got the expanse of space to hide yourself away.
And I think I could draw a Parralel between the Empire/New Order and 1910's Germany/1930's Germany. An oppressive force was defeated, sanctioned and repressed - but allowed to rebuild and re-set for a different, larger, worse war twenty years later. About the same time it took for the New Order to rebuild to the point where they were ready to re-open hostilities with the Republic. Nobody is suggesting there wouldn't be political mistakes behind allowing them to gain the power of Starkiller Base, but that kind of fuck up is at least feasible enough that I don't think it qualifies as a huge narrative problem.
WadiumArcadium
Member
Yeah, it probably should have given us more insight into the Republic. The scene where Leia sends Kor Sella to Hosnian Prime to appeal for support from the Republic shouldn't have been cut. It was small but it would have clarified things a bit.
theCalamity
Member
I don't think that GAF is incapable of interpreting the political setup of TFA. It's just that the movie doesn't explain it well or sufficiently. I think Hux kind of explains the relationship between the Resistance and the Republic right before he destroys the Republic.
The rehash criticism is valid because TFA basically resets the power dynamics to the way it was in ANH. You have the Resistance (Rebels) and now you have the First Order (Empire). I don't see how that criticism is lazy.
EDIT: The Repblic's relationship to the Resistance in the opening crawl. Still, the political climate is n't explained well.
First Order and 3rd Death Star are really the biggest, mind boggling decision of the new SW trilogy.
I can't believe someone read that bad fan-fiction level shit and said "Yeah, yeah this is a good starting point for our multi billion dollars reboot of one of the biggest franchises in the world".
I can't believe someone read that bad fan-fiction level shit and said "Yeah, yeah this is a good starting point for our multi billion dollars reboot of one of the biggest franchises in the world".
The Hermit
Member
Yeah
After TFA I don't care about ep 8 or 9 anymore.
After TFA I don't care about ep 8 or 9 anymore.
Moff
Member
I do think TFA did a poor job of explaining the state of the galaxy, what's up with the republic, what is the first order, what is their relation the empire, how much space are they ruling, why is leia a general. it took books to explain that and that's among the points that bothered me the most after my first watch.
Well aside from requiring the complete destruction of the republic, the characters and actual personal things going on are much more complex and varied compared to ANH.
That alone is enough to mean that calling it a rehash is lazy because a story is frequently retold, but it's characters that carry it.
I think of it as a ham fisted reset. It was a side show to set up the universe again. Politics, trade negotiations, enough of that so blow up the republic. Badly done but I understand what they were thinking. Maybe it ruins some possible republic stories but perhaps they never had the intention of going down that route and needed to tip the scales.
theCalamity
Member
I'm referring to the power dynamics in the movie. They reset the power dynamics back to the Rebels vs. Empire setup in ANH. That's a rehash.
I understood that, my problem is most people that use that word in this thread literally imply that they either remade ANH or empire.
What did he mean by this?
Member
JJ Abrams is a scam artist
Interfectum
Gold Member
The entire narrative around The First Order feels ripped straight from a bad YA novel.
Neff
Member
It's dumb as fuck is what it is.
Disney were so utterly terrified of leaning in the slightest direction of the prequels that they kept politics as far away from their movie as possible. There is a (thin, convenient) explanation as to how the First Order came to exist, but outside of deleted scenes and peripheral merchandise, you'd never know it.
They basically tried to force a post-ROTJ shaped object through an ANH-shaped hole, and for anyone with a shred of series familiarity, it didn't work. It's fun, but in the greater scheme of things, particularly when stacked against I-VI, it's a cowardly, conservative, slapdash little movie.
I dunno, I think you can still do all that stuff without recycling prior episodes, without making colossal logic leaps to fit a more marketable narrative, and without straight up insulting the viewer's intelligence.
Disney were so utterly terrified of leaning in the slightest direction of the prequels that they kept politics as far away from their movie as possible. There is a (thin, convenient) explanation as to how the First Order came to exist, but outside of deleted scenes and peripheral merchandise, you'd never know it.
They basically tried to force a post-ROTJ shaped object through an ANH-shaped hole, and for anyone with a shred of series familiarity, it didn't work. It's fun, but in the greater scheme of things, particularly when stacked against I-VI, it's a cowardly, conservative, slapdash little movie.
I dunno, I think you can still do all that stuff without recycling prior episodes, without making colossal logic leaps to fit a more marketable narrative, and without straight up insulting the viewer's intelligence.
I have no idea what the fuck the situation in the galaxy is after VII. Like, is the First Order winning the war, or the resistance (which is secretly apart of the Republic, I guess)? VII is so fucking vague on so many points, I don't even know who has the upper hand in the war. How big is the First Order and how big is the Resistance? Why doesn't the fucking Republic have an official army?
Interfectum
Gold Member
You have to read a bunch of books for the info I guess.
TheMagician
Member
Everyone I know who saw the movie thought the New Order were in charge of the Galaxy still.
A couple of lines do suggest otherwise but they did a poor job of depicting the lay of the land.
A couple of lines do suggest otherwise but they did a poor job of depicting the lay of the land.
FunkyDealer
Banned
Can't say I found them an interesting foe. The planetary annihilation made zero emotional impact as none of the films characters or important events had taken place there. And, come on... Another Death Star? Really?
The nazi speech was facepalm-inducing stupidity of an unnecessary parallell.
And Snoke himself just looked like the punished lovechild of The Hobbits white orc , Gollum, and Batman V Supermans Doomsday (which was already basically the stupid white orc on some godzilla-infused crack). That's one threesome you don't want to dip into. He just felt so, generic.
The rivalry between Kylo Ren and the blonde commander never led to anything of interest either.
And Phasma was ridiculously underutilised.
Really, the only interesting thing The First Order bought us was this motherfucker:
The nazi speech was facepalm-inducing stupidity of an unnecessary parallell.
And Snoke himself just looked like the punished lovechild of The Hobbits white orc , Gollum, and Batman V Supermans Doomsday (which was already basically the stupid white orc on some godzilla-infused crack). That's one threesome you don't want to dip into. He just felt so, generic.
The rivalry between Kylo Ren and the blonde commander never led to anything of interest either.
And Phasma was ridiculously underutilised.
Really, the only interesting thing The First Order bought us was this motherfucker:
The First Order controlled part of the Unknown Regions so it was sizable but not as large as the Republic. The Resistance barely controls any space - it's mostly an organization, not a state.
The Republic has a small military and while it's navy was the largest in the galaxy it was still a fraction of the size of the Empire's. Mothma wanted to reduce the military to prevent another Imperial war machine, so member states of the NR have their own locally controlled planetary defense forces.
FunkyDealer
Banned
I agree with this. The film desperately needed at least another thirty minutes to explain things like this, and to calm down between action sequences so they could be more impactful.
theCalamity
Member
Did you get all of this from the books?
Yep.
theCalamity
Member
That's the problem.
This asshole right here was so bad he took me right out of the movie.
They played her up before the movie so much but then she turned out to be soft as pudding.
They played her up before the movie so much but then she turned out to be soft as pudding.
I agree that the Empire in the OT doesn't need a lot of explaining. It's just some empire run by power-hungry jerks. Someone got together to conquer planets and they've succeeded and now life sucks so let's blow 'em up.
But with the new trilogy, I think the audience is at least owed a bit of explanation. It makes the OT seems so hollow if everything is back to the status quo after the trials and tribulations of the heroes. I understand that they need to make it as straightforward and accessible enough so new fans can understand who the evil dudes are, but it really wouldn't take a lot of effort to explain who the First Order is and why the exist.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they borrow from KotOR and pull a Star Forge out of their butt to explain how the First Order got so powerful.
cj_iwakura
Member
Yep. TFA had good ideas, just badly(if at all) told.
Vampirolol
Member
I guess that if you want EU explanations and political dialogues, then you want a different kind of Star Wars, wich I don't like at all.
afternoon delight
Member
I disagree, the OT remains as warm and fun as ever. TFA being the hollow wannabe with a hundred false notes and bad execution does not diminish the effect of the first three.
This asshole right here was so bad he took me right out of the movie.
The scene where he make a speech was so bad. And Abrams trying to frame that scene like it was such a meaningful and scary moments with no music made it worse.
Astral Dog
Member
Turns out Sheev Palpatine had a few Empires to spare,he just thought about his old pal Snoke
Nah man, we really don't need some kind of morally relative "both sides are the same" conflict in a SW movie.
Good thing the franchise is big enough for the both of us.
- Status