Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[NecronLord]

Competence didn't bring down the Empire. Overconfidence brought down the Empire. The Empire didn't rate the Ewoks as a threat, and so they fell.

Palpatine wanted to grandstand for Luke, and regarded the battle of Endor as no more than a sideshow, and so he failed there too, instead of letting Piett's forces attack on their own terms.

The rebels were plenty competent, mind you, but complacency is the weakness that defeated the Emperor; as Luke said.

But it's very clear that the disarmament was basically unilateral. The New Republic did not sent monitors to Impspace to see that each hull was junked and put beyond use like the USA or Russia would (and do to this day) that's why and how there's a First Order. Dumb, but that's the canon.

[KraytKing]

Again, I have too much faith in the galaxy. I tend to forget the Ewok BS...

But regardless, I don't think that means the Rebellion was incompetent. Solid political leadership from Mothma, a strong military from Madine and Iblis. This force would have required some heft to kill. Heft with competent leadership.

I suppose the Republic did die to another Death Star. I'm not sure why I'm trying to defend the intelligence of anyone in this galaxy. Just trying to save myself from thoughts I don't like, I guess.

[amigocabal]

But he's central to the entire plot. Without his temptation of Ben Solo, none of this even happens. That makes him important.

He's not central to the entire plot, he's merely a central figure of events related to the plot - events from before the plot takes place. The Emperor in the OT was similarly "important", but that doesn't make expository dialog about his history with Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker a valuable use of the film's time.

Snoke's only purpose in the plot is to die in order to serve Ben Solo and Rey's development.

They coul;d have added a line near the beginning. "I hunted the Jedi with Darth Vader, and believe me, you are no Darth Vader".

That one line would have been sufficient to explain Snoke's origins.

[NecronLord]

Why does it matter though? He was an opportunist, a coward and an imitator, with a giant sized ego and little originality. He will no doubt get a backstory in the new EU at some point, but it's hardly a defect of the film.

[KraytKing]

It seems to be a defect of the film that we can assume a baseline of rock-stupidity. Part of the reason I don't give a damn what happens to the characters is that they are constantly making bad choices, whether on-screen or as suggested by the plot.

[Vendetta]

Not really. The point there is that political acumen is not related to force power in any way (as witnessed by the fact that Leia was not able to run the galaxy!) Even Palpatine (who inherited a position with the same power as the aforementioned Hutt and even less external enemies) managed to have a legacy that didn't last beyond his own lifetime, except in the form of, well, see below.

The difficulty of ruling a culture is internal dissent. The First Order has literally no internal dissent. Finn is considered remarkable for his mental conditioning failing, and the First Order has nothing but slaves directly under its rule. The army is literally inculcated by machine with loyalty to him. That's supremely easy to run. All Snoke has to do is smack people about with the force (like Hux) if they try to question him. The prospect of confronting someone who can resist being smacked about in person with the force terrifies him.

We know that large parts of the Imperial Fleet just hyperspaced off into the unknown regions; that's how the First Order came to be powerful; the New Republic was literally too dumb to live, and the writers had no idea whatsoever how disarmament treaties work in the real world.

A child could come up with what Snoke did.

Alright, perhaps I'm overestimating the writers. I'm going off of the idea that enemies of the Empire are not medically retarded. If that's the case, then yes, Snoke could just be an Inquisitor. But if they displayed any of the competence that brought down the Empire in a generation, then Snoke better be really fucking smart. And again, for that we need a backstory.

The Republic appears to be extensively and far too swiftly disarmed in TFA since the First Order is already too much of a military threat for them to want to challenge them*.

Then in this very movie Poe Dameron got literally 95% of the surviving resistance killed by being a mutinous dipshit who can't listen to orders.

So y'know, Snoke maybe did win by accident.

* Remember that the Old Republic was actually not well armed in the early part of the PT, it wasn't until the Clone Wars that they instituted the Grand Army of the Republic. This new republic should have listened to Jar Jar more.

[The Romulan Republic]

Competence didn't bring down the Empire. Overconfidence brought down the Empire. The Empire didn't rate the Ewoks as a threat, and so they fell.

Palpatine wanted to grandstand for Luke, and regarded the battle of Endor as no more than a sideshow, and so he failed there too, instead of letting Piett's forces attack on their own terms.

The rebels were plenty competent, mind you, but complacency is the weakness that defeated the Emperor; as Luke said.

But it's very clear that the disarmament was basically unilateral. The New Republic did not sent monitors to Impspace to see that each hull was junked and put beyond use like the USA or Russia would (and do to this day) that's why and how there's a First Order. Dumb, but that's the canon.

Stupid, maybe. But not unrealistic, I think, that a galaxy that had known a millennium of relative peace, suddenly plunged into forty-odd years of instability, genocidal war, and brutal dictatorship, would collectively say "Fuck it, we've had enough of war, we want the good old demilitarized days back."

And the Republic, being at least somewhat democratic, would have had to listen to those views, especially if it wanted to wrap itself in the mantel of the Old Republic's legitimacy, and claim that it was trying to restore the Old Republic, rather than being just another faction trying to seize power for its own ends.

[Abacus]

Why does it matter though? He was an opportunist, a coward and an imitator, with a giant sized ego and little originality. He will no doubt get a backstory in the new EU at some point, but it's hardly a defect of the film.

It's a giant defect of the film. We have no understanding for *why* he is in charge of the First Order. We have zero background to look at to explain *why* he is SO powerful in the Force; so much so that I have to wonder why Palpatine was Emperor and not Snoke. He was raised up to be the BIG BAD, and when you do that you have to explain why/how he became the BIG BAD. Otherwise it's a plot hole. A not insignificant one, either.

[The Romulan Republic]

Okay, like I said, I haven't seen the film yet (Boxing Day), so I'm just going off what people are saying in this thread. If he is unambiguously portrayed as more powerful than Palpatine, that would irritate me, at least a little, though not because its a plot-hole- because its obvious unimaginative wank attempting to one-up the previous films rather than putting a bit of imagination into their villains.

As to why Palpatine was Emperor rather than Snoke, though... that's easy, even leaving aside the issue of weather Snoke was still a little kid at the time Palpatine was rising to power.

Raw power alone was not what made Palpatine Emperor. Political savvy backed up by use of the Force was. When Palpatine rose to power, there wasn't one Jedi, or two Jedi, or a dozen Jedi. There were 10,000 Jedi. If he'd walked into the Jedi Temple or the Senate, whipped out a red lightsaber, and declared himself Emperor... he might have killed a few guys. Maybe even a few hundred guys, if he went on a rampage in the Senate or something. And then Yoda, Windu, and the rest of the Council would have shown up, probably with other knights and masters and a few thousand security guys, and wiped the floor with him.

Palpatine won because he was a political genius, not because he had the biggest Force-dick.

Not really. The point there is that political acumen is not related to force power in any way (as witnessed by the fact that Leia was not able to run the galaxy!) Even Palpatine (who inherited a position with the same power as the aforementioned Hutt and even less external enemies) managed to have a legacy that didn't last beyond his own lifetime, except in the form of, well, see below.

The difficulty of ruling a culture is internal dissent. The First Order has literally no internal dissent. Finn is considered remarkable for his mental conditioning failing, and the First Order has nothing but slaves directly under its rule. The army is literally inculcated by machine with loyalty to him. That's supremely easy to run. All Snoke has to do is smack people about with the force (like Hux) if they try to question him. The prospect of confronting someone who can resist being smacked about in person with the force terrifies him.

We know that large parts of the Imperial Fleet just hyperspaced off into the unknown regions; that's how the First Order came to be powerful; the New Republic was literally too dumb to live, and the writers had no idea whatsoever how disarmament treaties work in the real world.

A child could come up with what Snoke did.

Alright, perhaps I'm overestimating the writers. I'm going off of the idea that enemies of the Empire are not medically retarded. If that's the case, then yes, Snoke could just be an Inquisitor. But if they displayed any of the competence that brought down the Empire in a generation, then Snoke better be really fucking smart. And again, for that we need a backstory.

Elaborating on what I said regarding the political forces that would likely drive the NR towards demilitarization, damn the consequences:

It does not take a super-genius to destabilize an already destabilized society, or take advantage of said destabilization. I don't think Daesh is run by supervillain geniuses, yet they nearly overran Iraq, and probably would have without outside intervention on Iraq's behalf- outside intervention that doesn't exist here, because its a galactic civilization.

Let's see:

-We have a galaxy that, after a millennium of peace, has suffered three-four brutal decades of alternating civil unrest, civil war, and despotism.

-We have a resultant strong drive towards demilitarization, and likely decentralization.

-Thanks to the Empire's enslavement of aliens, we likely have a lot of non-humans who simply will not trust any humans or human-run government, and vice-versa.

-Don't know if the EU stuff goes there, but there's realistically probably have a bunch of worlds (including ex-separatist worlds), maybe even whole sectors, that are glad the Empire's gone but want fuck-all to do with the New Republic, going their own way.

-The Rebellion/New Republic absolutely does not have the forces to control the galaxy by force of arms after the Empire falls, nor the political will/desire to do so- they are billing themselves as restoring the democratic Old Republic.

You don't have to be Grand Admiral Thrawn to make that system fall apart. Its already falling apart on its own.

As I said- I have zero problem with Snoke being "just some guy". In fact, I prefer it. To my mind, he's just a smooth talker, backed up by a bit of Force sensitivity, who saw an opening and took it.

[Kane Starkiller]

I have absolutely no problem with Snoke getting offed like that. It was clear that writers had no idea how to make him different than Palpatine so they just took the throne room scene from Return of the Jedi and slapped it on the ending of the Last Jedi's Empire Strikes Back. I actually loved how Kylo circumvented Snoke's ability to predict his moves.
The problem was they introduced Snoke as some shadowy figure in the background whose full story is yet to be revealed so people feel like the ending to his story was a cheap copout which, of course, it was.
He should've been introduced like Tarkin was in the original Star Wars as the man in charge with no mystery behind it.

[NecronLord]

Snoke isn't more powerful than Palpatine, he's not even more powerful than Dooku. Everything we saw him do, Dooku could do, save only the very nebulous "I have linked you together" thing. Dooku also demonstrated far more combat ability.

Stupid, maybe. But not unrealistic, I think, that a galaxy that had known a millennium of relative peace, suddenly plunged into forty-odd years of instability, genocidal war, and brutal dictatorship, would collectively say "Fuck it, we've had enough of war, we want the good old demilitarized days back."

And the Republic, being at least somewhat democratic, would have had to listen to those views, especially if it wanted to wrap itself in the mantel of the Old Republic's legitimacy, and claim that it was trying to restore the Old Republic, rather than being just another faction trying to seize power for its own ends.

I'm not saying disarmament is dumb. I approve of disarmament in principle. But verification is important, no, vital because it stops this bullshit.

I don't think Daesh is run by supervillain geniuses, yet they nearly overran Iraq, and probably would have without outside intervention on Iraq's behalf- outside intervention that doesn't exist here, because its a galactic civilization.

Without wanting to go off topic, no, ISIL was at its peak, if not run by geniuses, then run by very competent people indeed with lots of military experience. They even had a quite famously competent social care system. Warcrimes do not make people inept at fighting. Sadly.

[Shroom Man 777]

ROTJ didn't give us Palpatine's backstory either. And save for uttering The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise and being a big ham, Palpatine in PT wasn't even a necessary showing.

Instead we got Kylo being a rabid dog maniac power-grabber, something Vader didn't do, and I'm fine with that. Why rehash Palpatine with Snoke?

Snoke got a great character arc IMO. He started off as this ominously robed hologram figure, thus a Palpatine knockoff. He then appeared in a really pimping ass golden suit, so he's no longer a Palpatine knockoff. I think that was a really satisfying development for his character. It was fulfilling. And with that worthy conclusion, his story ended.

[Galvatron]

I have absolutely no problem with Snoke getting offed like that. It was clear that writers had no idea how to make him different than Palpatine so they just took the throne room scene from Return of the Jedi and slapped it on the ending of the Last Jedi's Empire Strikes Back. I actually loved how Kylo circumvented Snoke's ability to predict his moves.
The problem was they introduced Snoke as some shadowy figure in the background whose full story is yet to be revealed so people feel like the ending to his story was a cheap copout which, of course, it was.
He should've been introduced like Tarkin was in the original Star Wars as the man in charge with no mystery behind it.

Well said. That's exactly my problem with the whole Snoke thing. His mere existence raises so many questions, not to mention his scarred appearance.

[Shroom Man 777]

Palpatine had such traits too in ROTJ. And then he died.

[KraytKing]

But Palpatine came in a new universe. Nothing to contradict his existence, nowhere he should have been. Literally anything could have happened to make Palpatine the Emperor.

Snoke has none of these. We know what has happened for the last thirty years, and none of it is Snoke. So, we need to know where he fits in.

[Galvatron]

Palpatine was also given the skeleton of a backstory as far back as 1976 in the novelization of the original film. Those of us clamoring for more information about Snoke have no such thing.

However, since Leia knew of Snoke and even blamed him for Kylo's fall, perhaps Luke encountered him during his search for Force-sensitives and brought him back to the Jedi academy for a time. Until he became a corrupting influence on the others, Luke may have even welcomed him as a fellow teacher at first since he was already so old and wise.

[Shroom Man 777]

Sure, "we met him but he was an ass and then became a megalomaniac warlord" is a pretty simple explanation that doesn't even need to be depicted.

Just get a Palpatine clone played by Tom Hardy, have him just wear his old Shinzon costume.

[ray245]

Sure, "we met him but he was an ass and then became a megalomaniac warlord" is a pretty simple explanation that doesn't even need to be depicted.

Just get a Palpatine clone played by Tom Hardy, have him just wear his old Shinzon costume.

The question is where was he during the empire? Or even before Palpatine? How did he gain the loyalty of the former imperials?

This ties into to the whole question of what were the heroes doing while Snoke basically did what he wanted. I know you can probably say it's all in the unknown region, but that's such a cop out. There's no sense of progression of the world between ROTJ and TFA.

[Shroom Man 777]

The question is where was he during the empire? Or even before Palpatine? How did he gain the loyalty of the former imperials?

This ties into to the whole question of what were the heroes doing while Snoke basically did what he wanted. I know you can probably say it's all in the unknown region, but that's such a cop out. There's no sense of progression of the world between ROTJ and TFA.

It's a big verse, Palpy and Dooks were able to manufacture a galaxy-stomping Clone Army just by hiring some rando cloners. Snoke could've done the same, especially given the FO was already setting shop up on its own.

[AniThyng]

JJ Abrams is writing episode ix right? That should be interesting to see what he does to wrap this up...

[Galvatron]

Sure, "we met him but he was an ass and then became a megalomaniac warlord" is a pretty simple explanation that doesn't even need to be depicted.

Oh, I agree.

Moreover, I always said that Palpatine didn't even need to be in the prequels much, if at all. I'd have much preferred Tarkin as the face of the fledgling Empire while Palpatine remained off-screen and was spoken of with equal parts reverence and dread.

I could see Snoke oozing his way from student to student, whispering thinly-veiled heresy in their ears like Grima Wormtongue. Those who fell for it became the Knights of Ren and helped Kylo when he destroyed the academy.

[ray245]

The question is where was he during the empire? Or even before Palpatine? How did he gain the loyalty of the former imperials?

This ties into to the whole question of what were the heroes doing while Snoke basically did what he wanted. I know you can probably say it's all in the unknown region, but that's such a cop out. There's no sense of progression of the world between ROTJ and TFA.

It's a big verse, Palpy and Dooks were able to manufacture a galaxy-stomping Clone Army just by hiring some rando cloners. Snoke could've done the same, especially given the FO was already setting shop up on its own.

And all the ships? As far as I am aware, the republic actually have to fund them. The CIS already had warships with private navy from the trade federation as an example.

Starkiller base? Because all it does is to make the new republic act like total idiots, which they might be, but it makes the setting feels too artificial and unearned.

[ray245]

Ran out of edit time: It feels like they want to recreate the rebellion vs the empire, but they went for the most hamfist manner possible. The new EU doesn't help by pretending that the FO got away with large scale kidnappings and stripmining of planets.

[Galvatron]

I didn't have a problem with the FO's military buildup because they did it in a region of the galaxy where the Republic had no presence. Same with the construction of Starkiller Base.

The only real beef I have with the First Order is that its leaders seem like bumbling fools (see General Hux). I desperately want to see more officers like Captain Canady, if only to explain how the FO kept its shit together long enough to become a military superpower in the first place.

[Nephtys]

The Republic's military being crap is fine. Because we visibly see a huge wad of capital warships being destroyed by Starkiller, a totally unprecedented weapon that far (FAR) exceeds the powers of even the last giant weapon, the Death Star. That gave you hours and hours of time to prepare. This fired a beam across light years that then splits and instagibs multiple planets. How can ANYONE prepare for that?

Perhaps since the Republic doesn't need to forcibly occupy it's populace, it has massive fleets stationed in powerful anchorages, able to sortie and respond to attack, and outgunned the pathetic First Order. While War-Mongers like Leia were railing for the Republic to strike Space North Korea.

So the Republic loses 80%+ of their fleet, enough for the First Order to then strike and outgun the Republic, enough where defeat is likely. Nothing contradictory there at all. The Resistance seemed well funded enough for an independent organization to field at least one capital warship, so presumably war surplus is all over the place. Plus, the New Republic Navy was funded enough to develop, and then surplus, T-70s which means they certainly didn't go all swords to plowshares immediately.

Presumably, idiots like Hux were chosen solely for political loyalty. Canady was an old school Imperial man, and had his own set of ideologies.