New Empire vs New rebellion in the sequels: Biggest mistake?

[Galvatron]

Maybe the "one in a million" Holdo maneuver requires Force-sensitivity, just like Luke's kill shot against the Death Star did (another "one in a million" shot, according to Han).

Yes, that would mean Holdo herself may have been Force-sensitive and simply never received any Jedi training. Hell, she may not have even known she was strong in the Force, but somehow knew she could pull if off (thus negating the cowardice argument).

We are talking about Star Wars, after all.

[chimericoncogene]

Maybe the "one in a million" Holdo maneuver requires Force-sensitivity, just like Luke's kill shot against the Death Star did (another "one in a million" shot, according to Han).

Yes, that would mean Holdo herself may have been Force-sensitive and simply never received any Jedi training. Hell, she may not have even known she was strong in the Force, but somehow knew she could pull if off (thus negating the cowardice argument).

We are talking about Star Wars, after all.

Yeah, I think the old EU had a few oopsies with hyperdrive missiles too.

I still think it needed better "encysting" as a new use once only New Republic Superweapon, never to be seen again, just for worldbuilding consistency.

Ditto those damned Death Starettes in ISD hulls. Totally universe breaking, and it gives planet killer a bad name. Couldn't they have given Palps a fleet of normal ships and left it at that? Or a fleet of Eclipse-class superdreads? So easy to fix. Not fixed.

[Captain Seafort]

Maybe the "one in a million" Holdo maneuver requires Force-sensitivity, just like Luke's kill shot against the Death Star did (another "one in a million" shot, according to Han).

Yes, that would mean Holdo herself may have been Force-sensitive and simply never received any Jedi training. Hell, she may not have even known she was strong in the Force, but somehow knew she could pull if off (thus negating the cowardice argument).

Or she expected to hit the Supremacy and do some damage but didn't anticipate destroying it, akin to the time the Ex was accidentally rammed by a flotilla of ISDs coming out of hyperspace in the old Marvel comics.

[Galvatron]

Well, that's kinda what happened. The Supremacy was crippled, but it wasn't destroyed outright.

[Captain Seafort]

Well, that's kinda what happened. The Supremacy was crippled, but it wasn't destroyed outright.

It was chopped in half. If that "wasn't destroyed outright" then neither was the Bismarck.

[Galvatron]

What I mean is, it didn't explode like the Death Star and there were lots of survivors. It still had life support, artificial gravity and power too.

[Civil War Man]

It also crippled every other ship in the First Order fleet at the exact same time, which is part of why it has been causing so many complaints. The gambit was so effective that it became difficult to believe that something like that wouldn't already be in wide use. If a ship the size of the Raddus was able to use that tactic to punch that far above its own weight, then slapping a hyperdrive and a navicomputer on a proton torpedo might allow you to take out a decent sized cruiser, or maybe even an entire flotilla, with a couple shots.

As for Holdo being able to pull it off by being Force sensitive, that's always a possibility, but I don't actually buy the "one in a million" excuse, anyway. If the chances of success were so low that you'd need to be Force sensitive in order to pull it off, why was Hux freaking out when he realized what Holdo was doing, unless Hux is also Force sensitive now?

It's a rather impressive visual spectacle, but it's there just to be an impressive spectacle, with little to no apparent thought put into how it fit into the previously established rules of the setting. In a way, it representative of a problem that's been fairly endemic to the entire sequel trilogy, where something gets thrown in to add to the spectacle or raise the stakes, someone asks questions about some aspect of it, and then the story team twists itself into a pretzel backpedaling or downplaying the question.

[The Romulan Republic]

You're ex-military, yes? Then you should be aware that military technology and tactics evolve. Then someone comes up with a counter to them. To suggest that the Holdo Maneuver was a one time thing that could absolutely never be replicated no matter what... just because would surely be far more absurd than to recognize that, yeah, someone invented something new.

I think one of the problems people have with that explanation is that in-universe hyperspace travel has been a ubiquitous part of galactic society for thousands of years, yet Holdo is apparently the first person to figure out how to weaponize it. If hyperdrive were a recent invention, or much less commonplace, I could easily see it as Holdo cooking up a new tactic, but it's about as fundamental to Star Wars society as the wheel is to ours. It would be like an alternate history Earth where last year Mattis becomes the first person in human history to figure out that a country could use vehicles to bolster the fighting strength of their military.

IIRC there was some technobable about the ship having different shields or something.

A simpler explanation might be that aiming a hyperspace jump that precisely is difficult, and so was only rendered feasible by advances in navigation computing. This has some basis in prior canon (the careful calculations Han needs to perform before jumping to hyperspace in ANH, Thrawn using interdictors to guide ships out of hyperspace at precise locations in his trilogy because normally they can't do it that precisely). In fact, we see a fair few new hyperspace manuevers and technologies in the new films, so an advance in hyperspace navigation computing at some point during the galactic civil war era fits quite well.

It would also fit in the sense that during the 1,000 years of peace of the Old Republic, there was no pressing need to make such advances- it was a peaceful and likely somewhat static society. Whereas once galactic warfare began, there would be an urgent impetus to devise new weapons (or reinvent old ones), as seen with the development of the Death Star, Starkiller Base, etc.

Not to say that the attempt at a hasty retcon was any better. As I've heard pointed out elsewhere, that whole "one in a million" throwaway line completely re-contextualizes Holdo's sacrifice as cowardice, since she surely would have been aware of the astronomically low odds of success, which means she would be aware that she would much more likely just be running away and leaving the rest of the resistance behind to die while she saved her own skin.

More like she was trying to commit suicide. Even if she'd hypered out, she'd have then been out of fuel, and could have easily been tracked down again. If there was a selfish motive, it was "I'd rather go out in a blaze of glory than be taken alive by people who don't respect the rights of prisoners".

[Avrjoe]

I would go with it only worked due to The Supremacy being a ludicrously large target. It would fit well with other oversized ships in the franchise allowing small fighters to get through. It would dovetail with how Finn and Rose were able to get onboard.

It also would fit other facts we know about the First Order trying to look like the Empire but placing appearance over substance. For example how their Stormtroopers lack toxin filters.

[The Romulan Republic]

I would go with it only worked due to The Supremacy being a ludicrously large target. It would fit well with other oversized ships in the franchise allowing small fighters to get through. It would dovetail with how Finn and Rose were able to get onboard.

It also would fit other facts we know about the First Order trying to look like the Empire but placing appearance over substance. For example how their Stormtroopers lack toxin filters.

That actually fits somewhat with my explanation too- the Supremacy being a massive target makes it easier to hit, which fits with this being a manuever that takes high precision to pull off.

Maybe the "one in a million" Holdo maneuver requires Force-sensitivity, just like Luke's kill shot against the Death Star did (another "one in a million" shot, according to Han).

Yes, that would mean Holdo herself may have been Force-sensitive and simply never received any Jedi training. Hell, she may not have even known she was strong in the Force, but somehow knew she could pull if off (thus negating the cowardice argument).

We are talking about Star Wars, after all.

This is arguably canon- at least the Force sensitive part. Laura Dern confirmed some time ago that Holdo's backstory, as worked out between her, Rian Johnson, and Kathleen Kennedy, included being Force sensitive.

Her comments also implied that she may have received some training from Leia, albeit somewhat ambiguous:

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-holdo- ... 0sensitive.

“In their minds, and in their understanding of the origin story, we know that she was a true rebel in the Resistance, and in our culture we might have called her a hippie. But she was longing for peace, and a revolutionary in that way, and wanted to be trained by and led by Leia, who taught her everything she knew. She wanted to come up in the ranks to support Leia’s mission, but also had this otherworldly side that does involve the Force.”

[The Romulan Republic]

But basically, I'd say that the best approach to the Holdo maneuver is that its possible to repeat it, but requires a) a top-notch navi-computer, and/or b) a really, really good pilot (most likely Force sensitive) to pull off the precision maneuver effectively. And also that its dodgy to try it near a strong gravity well, even then.

This would make it something that can be used in the setting when they want to, and explained as heroic piloting skills, "Will of the Force", or luck, while still explaining why its not used routinely.

[Patroklos]

And suicide.

So if it takes your best equipment and a kamikaze run of a primary character with a pilot arc, what the hell was so important about the SD over Endor that necessitated a repeat? I guess we know how Poe ended...

That also shoots down the "you have to be the size of the Supremacy" idea also. No matter how you look at it, making it repeatable and then using it against a one in a thousand target instead of a anti-hero ship causes more problems than it solves.

[The Romulan Republic]

And suicide.

So if it takes your best equipment and a kamikaze run of a primary character with a pilot arc, what the hell was so important about the SD over Endor that necessitated a repeat? I guess we know how Poe ended...

Who knows? Maybe that SD was facing off against some little corvette, and the corvette captain decided "fuck it, I'm not going to win this, might as well try to take them with me" and got lucky (or was a latent Force sensitive).

That also shoots down the "you have to be the size of the Supremacy" idea also. No matter how you look at it, making it repeatable and then using it against a one in a thousand target instead of a anti-hero ship causes more problems than it solves.

There's no reason that it being a maneuver that requires great precision doesn't work.

It needing great precision (or a Force sensitive pilot) also rules out mass-produced drone ramships, because computers generally aren't better pilots than high end humans in Star Wars, and are not Force sensitive. Meaning that to use this tactic, you'd need to be willing to send all your best pilots on suicide missions, which, yeah, no.

[Adam Reynolds]

I think one of the problems people have with that explanation is that in-universe hyperspace travel has been a ubiquitous part of galactic society for thousands of years, yet Holdo is apparently the first person to figure out how to weaponize it. If hyperdrive were a recent invention, or much less commonplace, I could easily see it as Holdo cooking up a new tactic, but it's about as fundamental to Star Wars society as the wheel is to ours. It would be like an alternate history Earth where last year Mattis becomes the first person in human history to figure out that a country could use vehicles to bolster the fighting strength of their military.

This is an extremely common problem with ideas like this in science fiction. Writers want a character to have a clever idea, but then they don't have a good explanation for why this character is the first person in history to come up with said idea because it is not as clever as they think it is. Clever technobabble in Star Trek is often similar in this respect.

I can't think of a term for it, but there really should be one.

[Galvatron]

So if it takes your best equipment and a kamikaze run of a primary character with a pilot arc, what the hell was so important about the SD over Endor that necessitated a repeat? I guess we know how Poe ended...

Do we know for sure that the SD over Endor was a repeat? It definitely looked similar, but we didn't actually see it get Holdo'd.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hell, it could simply be someone shot it with a fuckhuge rail/coilgun.

[Elfdart]

I think one of the problems people have with that explanation is that in-universe hyperspace travel has been a ubiquitous part of galactic society for thousands of years, yet Holdo is apparently the first person to figure out how to weaponize it. If hyperdrive were a recent invention, or much less commonplace, I could easily see it as Holdo cooking up a new tactic, but it's about as fundamental to Star Wars society as the wheel is to ours. It would be like an alternate history Earth where last year Mattis becomes the first person in human history to figure out that a country could use vehicles to bolster the fighting strength of their military.

This is an extremely common problem with ideas like this in science fiction. Writers want a character to have a clever idea, but then they don't have a good explanation for why this character is the first person in history to come up with said idea because it is not as clever as they think it is. Clever technobabble in Star Trek is often similar in this respect.

I can't think of a term for it, but there really should be one.

How about Dumb or False Eureka?

[FaxModem1]

The big issue with New Empire vs New Rebellion is that you have to commit to the idea, and commitment means world building, which means scenes of people talking. That's not what the suits want, they want scenes of people fighting with blasters, lightsabers, or in fighters, so they commit to that instead of plot and pacing. And if they're HAVE to be scenes with people talking in it, it should have a lot of jokes in it, so that the audience can have a good time.

None of those things, by themselves, are bad. But unless you're just going for a Transformers kind of movie, wherein the plot really doesn't matter as compared to the big special effects sequences, than you have to work out what the world you're showing in your film means. Why Person A is part of Group B, and why they're the enemies of Person C, who is part of Group D. Especially when you're going to have the question of whether they're on the right side or not become a subplot for a few characters.(Kylo Ren, for instance)

[ray245]

The big issue with New Empire vs New Rebellion is that you have to commit to the idea, and commitment means world building, which means scenes of people talking. That's not what the suits want, they want scenes of people fighting with blasters, lightsabers, or in fighters, so they commit to that instead of plot and pacing. And if they're HAVE to be scenes with people talking in it, it should have a lot of jokes in it, so that the audience can have a good time.

None of those things, by themselves, are bad. But unless you're just going for a Transformers kind of movie, wherein the plot really doesn't matter as compared to the big special effects sequences, than you have to work out what the world you're showing in your film means. Why Person A is part of Group B, and why they're the enemies of Person C, who is part of Group D. Especially when you're going to have the question of whether they're on the right side or not become a subplot for a few characters.(Kylo Ren, for instance)

And as we see in the Transformers movies, you can only go so far before people lose interest in the franchise. The MCU movies on the other hand, managed to expand as it did because it tries to keep a reasonable amount of continuity in the world-building. Hell, they manage to turn the consequences of all the explosions and violence in all the prior Avengers movies into a plotline for Civil War.

It's a world reacting to its own events. The new movies is unwilling to do that, because they hired a director who never cares much about in-depth world-building.

[FaxModem1]

The big issue with New Empire vs New Rebellion is that you have to commit to the idea, and commitment means world building, which means scenes of people talking. That's not what the suits want, they want scenes of people fighting with blasters, lightsabers, or in fighters, so they commit to that instead of plot and pacing. And if they're HAVE to be scenes with people talking in it, it should have a lot of jokes in it, so that the audience can have a good time.

None of those things, by themselves, are bad. But unless you're just going for a Transformers kind of movie, wherein the plot really doesn't matter as compared to the big special effects sequences, than you have to work out what the world you're showing in your film means. Why Person A is part of Group B, and why they're the enemies of Person C, who is part of Group D. Especially when you're going to have the question of whether they're on the right side or not become a subplot for a few characters.(Kylo Ren, for instance)

And as we see in the Transformers movies, you can only go so far before people lose interest in the franchise. The MCU movies on the other hand, managed to expand as it did because it tries to keep a reasonable amount of continuity in the world-building. Hell, they manage to turn the consequences of all the explosions and violence in all the prior Avengers movies into a plotline for Civil War.

It's a world reacting to its own events. The new movies is unwilling to do that, because they hired a director who never cares much about in-depth world-building.

Yes, just a few scenes of Leia walking away from a Senate chamber grumbling about their lack of action or inability to do their jobs, or getting off a hologram call of why such and such action is a bad idea would have done wonders.

[MKSheppard]

And as we see in the Transformers movies, you can only go so far before people lose interest in the franchise.

Transformers 2 they basically tear the hell out of Shanghai and....nobody notices?

[MKSheppard]

It's a rather impressive visual spectacle, but it's there just to be an impressive spectacle, with little to no apparent thought put into how it fit into the previously established rules of the setting. In a way, it representative of a problem that's been fairly endemic to the entire sequel trilogy, where something gets thrown in to add to the spectacle or raise the stakes, someone asks questions about some aspect of it, and then the story team twists itself into a pretzel backpedaling or downplaying the question.

I think a correct term for this is "Aliens and Predatorization" where you have Predators and Aliens appearing all over their respective franchises.

Hm. Maybe the name has to be shortened to basically, "Alienization"; to mean that the Xenomorphs keep showing up, even when it makes no logical sense.

I have a soft spot for the first AvP movie, because the director/writers made it kind of work by setting it on an out of the way island in the Antarctic, where a Predator/Alien hunt could be missed; and where all the evidence of such a thing happening was vaporized by the Predator Self Destruct Device (TM).

The director was also careful to specifically call this out when the movie was released:

"You can't have an Alien running around the city now, because it would've been written up and everyone [in Alienverse] will know about it. So there's nothing in this movie that contradicts anything that already exists."

The Raddus spearing the SUPER HYPER STAR DESTROYER is kind of cool. But does it actually work in universe? As Civil War Man pointed out, if it works; it opens up all sorts of nasty implications for SW tech, particularly since you have scores of docile kamikaze servants (droids).

Then there's the retarded hyperspace skipjumping from planet to planet in Rise of Skywalker.

Anyone remember the good old Star Wars?

LUKE:
Are you kidding? At the rate they're gaining...

HAN:
Traveling through hyperspace isn't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?

That got carried over into 25~ years of the EU where hyperspace, once you were in it; was a "get out of jail" card, but actually GETTING into hyperspace; ah, that was the tricky part:

Couldn't go into hyperspace close to planets -- because if you could, why was there all the rigamole in A NEW HOPE about that Star Destroyer chasing down the Falcon, when the Falcon could just have punched into hyperspace within Docking Bay 34 on Tatooine, or at 500m above ground level on Tatooine?

[The Romulan Republic]

I think, as time goes on, that the ST is probably salvageable, if one took certain steps which no one at Disney seems interested in taking.

TFA is an awkward and in some ways unoriginal movie, but its flaws were not to my mind fatal, and it did the minimum of what it needed to do- introduced the new characters and basic conflict, and gave audiences a big flashy movie which made a lot of money. Leaving aside whatever Abrams was trying to set up, which is uncertain, it has three big flaws, in my view: the lack of world-building for the period between the trilogies, the failure to show us the Big Three united on-screen again, and the incredibly contrived and clumsy conclusion of the search for Luke plot. However, the first can be filled in by new material or an expanded edition, and the other two are more annoyances than things which actually damage the franchise as a whole, its continuity or themes or story as a whole.

TLJ tries to bring some new and more original themes within a familiar story, in a way that speaks to the concerns of our time. I introduces two new characters who I find very intriguing in Rose and Holdo. It continues Finn's arc and tries something very interesting, if unexpected, with Rey, and it gave Luke a wonderful finale. It does it somewhat awkwardly, and relies overmuch on subversion and misdirection, and some things weren't developed as fully as they could have been, but it would have been strengthened immensely if the next film had built on what it introduced, and tied it all together, rather than throwing it out to appease the fan bros. And I will defend Luke's death and its significance to the point that I'd be almost content with it as an end to the saga.

RoS... I am beginning to warm to. I still haven't been able to bring myself to watch it all the way through- I've watched lots of clips of it out of order. But I do stand by my view that Abrams is (most of the time, at least) a visually competent director. And if you're looking for fan service, it offers a lot. I don't think I'll ever be entirely comfortable with Reylo, but as a Buffy fan, I have no leg to stand on when objecting to the romanticization of abusive relationships (even if its one of the aspects of Buffy I like least).

The suddenness of Palpatine's return, and the potential for it undercutting RotJ and Anakin's death, is harder to swallow, but I could probably forgive it. Its no worse than what the old EU did, and I do love Ian McDiarmid. And most of its other faults seem, to me, fairly minor, albeit the constant little jabs at TLJ to appease the Bros irritate me deeply.

What I can't get past is the real world implications of pandering to racists. I just can't forgive that. So to me, if you wanted to fix Star Wars, the following would probably need to happen:

1. Release an extended edition of RoS with any cut Rose footage restored, and Rose given a more prominent place in promotional material. It'll never be as good as it could have been, it won't erase what was done, but it'll be something.

2. Cut that pseudo-Trumpian line about Poe (the franchise's sole Latino lead) being a former drug dealer.

The following I would deem non-essential, but highly desirable:

1. Use TV shows or stand-alone films to expand on the era of the ST, and the period between the trilogies, particularly the NR's politics, Luke's Order, and the rise of the First Order. Preferably with more Holdo, so we can see who she was without the skewing of TLJ's misdirections. The Clone Wars did a lot to win over fans to the Prequel era, and I think a new series could do the same for the Sequels, if done well, while also patching some of the shakier, more contrived/underdeveloped parts of canon.

2. Release an extended edition of TFA with cut New Republic politics footage added in (IIRC there was at least a scene or two shot, but cut).

3. Give Rose her own series or movie. Maybe with Finn. Contingent upon Kelly Marie Tran being willing to return, of course.

4. Post-RoS, tell the story that, in my opinion, RoS probably should have been about: Rey exploring and defining her own identity, while building her own Jedi Order. Since RoS did so little to move things forward in a lot of ways, this is still doable. You can even delve into her complicated relationship with Kylo if you want, via flashbacks/visions/Force ghosts, or alternately gloss over it.

This is of course about how one would fix the mess now, not what should have been done in the first place, which is a very different question.

[ray245]

I think, as time goes on, that the ST is probably salvageable, if one took certain steps which no one at Disney seems interested in taking.

This is of course about how one would fix the mess now, not what should have been done in the first place, which is a very different question.

I don't think it is. The problem with the ST is not merely about expanding the world. The novels and comics are trying to do that, but no one cares about them because the era itself is unattractive.

The prequels era, despite the flaws of the movies itself, remains attractive for fans because it has a vast cast of extended minor characters that are interesting. Prequels gave us a large cast of Jedi knights and masters with their own backstory to explore. The sequel era killed off all of its Jedi bar Rey.

The OT era gave us a vast cast of Rebels, a massive organisation with splinter cells and differing ideological factions. The Sequel era gave us a resistance that is barely bigger than a squadron of fighters, with a big massive fleet that came out of nowhere in ROS. That makes it hard to have any characters worth exploring.

Also, the OT and the PT spans a number of years. You can tell numerous stories in the time-span. The Sequel era went from New Republic being completely destroyed overnight, to First Order ruling over the Galaxy, to the Final Order being defeated in a span of a single fricking year. There really is not a lot of time to do a lot of storytelling for the characters. And the fact that the sequels makes it clear there was no widespread resistance against the FIrst Order bar the resistance makes it more challenging to even tell a story about a diverse resistance faction going against the FIrst Order.

I do not think the ST era is salvageable, and that is the ultimate problem Disney is going to have on their hands. They essentially killed their golden goose.

[chimericoncogene]

I don't think it is. The problem with the ST is not merely about expanding the world. The novels and comics are trying to do that, but no one cares about them because the era itself is unattractive.

The prequels era, despite the flaws of the movies itself, remains attractive for fans because it has a vast cast of extended minor characters that are interesting. Prequels gave us a large cast of Jedi knights and masters with their own backstory to explore. The sequel era killed off all of its Jedi bar Rey.

The OT era gave us a vast cast of Rebels, a massive organisation with splinter cells and differing ideological factions. The Sequel era gave us a resistance that is barely bigger than a squadron of fighters, with a big massive fleet that came out of nowhere in ROS. That makes it hard to have any characters worth exploring.

Also, the OT and the PT spans a number of years. You can tell numerous stories in the time-span. The Sequel era went from New Republic being completely destroyed overnight, to First Order ruling over the Galaxy, to the Final Order being defeated in a span of a single fricking year. There really is not a lot of time to do a lot of storytelling for the characters. And the fact that the sequels makes it clear there was no widespread resistance against the FIrst Order bar the resistance makes it more challenging to even tell a story about a diverse resistance faction going against the FIrst Order.

I do not think the ST era is salvageable, and that is the ultimate problem Disney is going to have on their hands. They essentially killed their golden goose.

While I don't think the Sequel Era is quite worth the effort, echoing ray's sentiment regarding its blandness, I believe that it is salvageable in principle. I'd go for the easy cop out and double down on the anarchy angle, talking about how government above Sector level had collapsed even when Hosnia was declaring itself a New Republic. That fleet was basically sector and planetary defense forces, as far as I can tell. Then encyst it in amber and write around that monstrosity until it starts maturing.

So... the OT cast completely failed to restore a sustainable self regulating system of galactic law and order following the collapse of the Empire. Interesting angle, but a bit depressing.