Will we get an Imperial POV Movie?

[Abacus]

Hey there folks. In light of the new movies and Disney's apparent dedication to pumping this cash cow for all its worth (and I will readily admit that I am one of the sheeple dishing out shillings to the machine), do you think we'll ever get an Imperial POV movie? Whether it's a movie, a mini-series, a TV show, or animated feature -- do you think they'd go so far as to make it?

Personally, I'd love to see something along the lines of the SD.Net famous fanfic story of "Hull no. 721". Or something that's kind of like Firefly meets Star Wars: a ship's captain trying to make his way in the galaxy and avoid too many 'Imperial entanglements', with a contrasting Imperial captain who is trying to hunt them down or something.

If they did green-light it, what kind of Imperial POV movie would you guys and gals want to see?

[Khaat]

If they could do it well, an Operation Valkyrie-type film would be cool: Imperial officers/"heroes of the Empire" group to overthrow the Emperor... well, you kind of know the end going in, but they could make the officers personable. Caught between protecting the safety and security of the Empire, and mad, genocidal orders from above, but: it would make the Empire less "monolithic baddies to the core".

[Lord Revan]

I think the "Death Star" novel did a reasonbly good depiction from an "Imperial" Point of View without making it a blatant case rooting for the bad guys, all the heroes are generally good people who just happen to work for the empire.

Way you could make imperial PoV movie or series with a "good guy" protagonist is have it set in a part of the Galactic Empire that is mostly left out of the Galactic Civil War attrocities of the Imperial rule being hearsay and rumors for the most part and having the villains be pirates and other criminals. So that Empire is the lesser of 2 evils and you could accept that a mostly decent person could support the Empire.

[Adam Reynolds]

In general, I seriously doubt the Empire will ever be anything other than pure bad guys under Disney. The only heroic Imperial characters I would see them making is defectors like Finn.

One thing that could be interesting is for the Boba Fett movie, presuming they make one, to feature an Imperial officer that is an antagonist for Fett in some sense. It would be about someone who believes in the rule of law and order, which is flouted by bounty hunters who only work for the highest bidder, serving scum like Jabba at the same time as legitimate Imperial bounties.

[APlayerHater]

We always get the phrase "there are heroes on both sides" and then we're treated to one side as puckish rogues with a heart of gold vs suicidal captain planet villains. To quote Mr. Plinkett "Can evil robots really be called heroes?"

[biostem]

Well, imagine a movie set around an Imperial prison station, where they were holding a rebel alliance member, they come and break that person out, but it results in all or many prisoners being released - some of which are truly evil characters. Now shift the focus to a small cadre of Imperial personnel who must attempt to retake the station, or at least hold out until reinforcements can arrive. The Imperials are, overall, the bad guys, but that doesn't mean that some of the people they imprison don't deserve it...

[APlayerHater]

Make a slasher movie about storm troopers hunting down the last of the jedi knights, with the jedi as the monster and the troopers are our protagonists. Make it like aliens but with a luke skywalker type instead of the xenomorph, with people going crazy and shooting each other from jedi mind tricks, the hum of a lightsaber when you're alone in dark hallways, and all kinds of anti-jedi equipment and gizmos to try to take out this far superior opponent with just mere humans.

[Joun_Lord]

I doubt we will ever get a Imperial POV game or movie that paints the Imps as anything but evil. The Empire is evil, it does evil things and is ran by evil people but I'm sure most of the rank and file and civilians are anything but evil. Showing them as anything but evil destroys the narrative of the good guys slaughtering bad guys without a care.

I'm honestly surprised they even did Finn. I mean the implications he should raise should be disturbing for the average viewer. He is a brainwashed kid forced to fight for the bad guys, a good guy forced to do bad things. All his buddies were just the same, for lack of a better word human. We are supposed to be feel bad when nameless stormtrooper number 80283428352 gets killed and smears up Finn's helmet (possibly as a last fuck you). Clearly Finn feels bad. But then we see Finn gleefully slaughtering his former buddies, he nor the audience supposed to be giving a shit that a bunch of people just like Finn, just as human as him are being killed.

But I guess we are supposed to think all the troopers but Finn and nameless dead guy are supposed to be asshole. I mean even the guy guarding Rey seems like an asshole, for some strange reason calling her Scavenger Scum. I bet he also sleeps with the widows of the guys he kills right after their funeral and is an asshole to his co-workers save his boss who he has some strange antagonistic mother son relationship. I bet he drinks alot too.

We might get more sympathetic Imperials but I'm relatively positive most will wind up like Finn, go to the Rebels......I mean Resistance. I think thats what happened to the other sympathetic Imperial in the new canon. I think it was the Imperial in the book that everyone said sucked because it was poorly written but the author tried to blame on homophobia but fuck if I know, I ain't touching the new EU with any sort of long phallic object no matter its length.

Of course with apparently a century of new Star Wars plus a whole new EU to do after they plunder the old one, we might get some sympathetic Imperials even on the big screen. We had some pretty sympathetic Imperials in the old EU, some of the Imps in Deathtroopers. Death Star, and Allegiance were good people. Lt Sunber was a pretty cool guy (even if his story ended incredibly shitty) as was the General he served under. Of course all those who jumped ship like Hand Solo and Kyle Katarn. Might get some similar characters.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't get why people want to see the Empire portrayed positively, unless they're just fascism fans. The Empire is a regime founded by a dark wizard on treason, war crimes, deception, and fucking genocide, and maintained, in part, through torture, racism, slavery, and the use of strategic weaponry on civilian population centres. Trying to paint them in a positive light is like trying to paint Nazi Germany in a positive light.

The closest you can get is people like Finn, who have little choice in fighting for the Empire and/or due to indoctrination don't know better. Or people like Lando in Episode V, who are pressured and coerced into collaboration. Anyone who makes an informed, rational, and voluntary choice to serve the Empire has automatically lose my sympathy on that basis.

Edit: That said, if you can do a movie with a bad guy (or an unwilling pawn of bad guys) as the protagonist, of course. But the former wouldn't really give the audience a sympathetic protagonist unless they tried to white wash the Empire somewhat, and the latter would just be like Finn except with the pre-defection part of his story being the whole movie.

[biostem]

I don't get why people want to see the Empire portrayed positively, unless they're just fascism fans. The Empire is a regime founded by a dark wizard on treason, war crimes, deception, and fucking genocide, and maintained, in part, through torture, racism, slavery, and the use of strategic weaponry on civilian population centres. Trying to paint them in a positive light is like trying to paint Nazi Germany in a positive light.

The closest you can get is people like Finn, who have little choice in fighting for the Empire and/or due to indoctrination don't know better. Or people like Lando in Episode V, who are pressured and coerced into collaboration. Anyone who makes an informed, rational, and voluntary choice to serve the Empire has automatically lose my sympathy on that basis.

Edit: That said, if you can do a movie with a bad guy (or an unwilling pawn of bad guys) as the protagonist, of course. But the former wouldn't really give the audience a sympathetic protagonist unless they tried to white wash the Empire somewhat, and the latter would just be like Finn except with the pre-defection part of his story being the whole movie.

That's why most proposed "pro-Empire" stories focus on a lower-tier soldier's point of view; Such people, (at least in the Galactic Empire era), are typically conscripts or recruits, and even if they are fed a lot of propaganda, they generally join out of a sense of duty. Yes, the Emperor and upper echelon can be said to be evil, but I do not think that every Imperial soldier believes that they are the bad guys...

[Lord Revan]

IMHO opinion the best "bad guys" are ones who think they're doing good or at very least the lesser evil. The villains who do evil for the sake of doing evil are boring for the most part.

That's why most proposed "pro-Empire" stories focus on a lower-tier soldier's point of view; Such people, (at least in the Galactic Empire era), are typically conscripts or recruits, and even if they are fed a lot of propaganda, they generally join out of a sense of duty. Yes, the Emperor and upper echelon can be said to be evil, but I do not think that every Imperial soldier believes that they are the bad guys...

tbh I dout that even Palpatine and the upper echelon see themselves as evil so much that they consider their actions to be the "you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs" style actions, though their actions generally are too harsh for the purpose and thus evil.

EDIT:still if you want a good sympathetic imperial protagonist, it would be better to go for the recruit who is generally a good guy and isn't fully aware of the imperial attrocities

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't get why people want to see the Empire portrayed positively, unless they're just fascism fans. The Empire is a regime founded by a dark wizard on treason, war crimes, deception, and fucking genocide, and maintained, in part, through torture, racism, slavery, and the use of strategic weaponry on civilian population centres. Trying to paint them in a positive light is like trying to paint Nazi Germany in a positive light.

The closest you can get is people like Finn, who have little choice in fighting for the Empire and/or due to indoctrination don't know better. Or people like Lando in Episode V, who are pressured and coerced into collaboration. Anyone who makes an informed, rational, and voluntary choice to serve the Empire has automatically lose my sympathy on that basis.

Edit: That said, if you can do a movie with a bad guy (or an unwilling pawn of bad guys) as the protagonist, of course. But the former wouldn't really give the audience a sympathetic protagonist unless they tried to white wash the Empire somewhat, and the latter would just be like Finn except with the pre-defection part of his story being the whole movie.

That's why most proposed "pro-Empire" stories focus on a lower-tier soldier's point of view; Such people, (at least in the Galactic Empire era), are typically conscripts or recruits, and even if they are fed a lot of propaganda, they generally join out of a sense of duty. Yes, the Emperor and upper echelon can be said to be evil, but I do not think that every Imperial soldier believes that they are the bad guys...

Of course not. Although one can believe they're the good guy and still be the bad guy. I mean, Bin Laden, Hitler... they probably believed they were the good guys.

But yeah, its a distinction between portraying individual Imperials sympathetically and portraying the Empire sympathetically. The former could fly with sufficiently good writing. The latter... no.

And actually, Finn, First Order/neo-Imperial background and all, is one of my favourite characters. He had the strongest character development/arc in TFA. So is ex-collaborator Lando, perhaps the most underrated and underused Star Wars character. So, for that matter, are Vader, Palpatine, and Kylo Ren, though not in the sense that I find them sympathetic or likeable so much as that they are interesting and compelling as villains. I wouldn't have much interest in a Palpatine or Ren PoV movie (though I would tolerate a film with Vader as the protagonist, because its fucking Vader).

Another example of this done fairly well, I think, was the Imperial administrator Tua on Lothal in Rebels. Though authoritarian and an Imperial, I get the sense that she really believed in the Empire and didn't understand how bad it was, and was utterly out of her depth dealing with monsters like Tarkin and Vader. And unlike Finn (probably) and Lando, she didn't get a happy ending. When she realized how screwed she was, she tried to defect, and got murdered for it, with the Rebels framed for her death.

[Joun_Lord]

I don't get why people want to see the Empire portrayed positively, unless they're just fascism fans. The Empire is a regime founded by a dark wizard on treason, war crimes, deception, and fucking genocide, and maintained, in part, through torture, racism, slavery, and the use of strategic weaponry on civilian population centres. Trying to paint them in a positive light is like trying to paint Nazi Germany in a positive light.

The closest you can get is people like Finn, who have little choice in fighting for the Empire and/or due to indoctrination don't know better. Or people like Lando in Episode V, who are pressured and coerced into collaboration. Anyone who makes an informed, rational, and voluntary choice to serve the Empire has automatically lose my sympathy on that basis.

Its not the Empire people want to see in a positive light, barring the Imperial supporters who think the Empire was worse but the Rebellion was worse....er or just thinks the Empire was teh bests, but members of the Empire seen in a less cartoonish villain way.

Even in Nutzi Germany, arguably the most evil regime ever to exist, not everyone was total evil. There were good people who for whatever reason served Shitler. Maybe they didn't know about the atrocities until too late, maybe they were caught up in it all, maybe they were brainwashed like our man Finn. Whatever, my point is not even the Nazis were all evil even if Nazi Germany most certainly was.

The Empire is far more ambiguous in its evil then them Nazis were. Leaving aside old EU example of cartoonish evil like Tarkin doing a Mario buttstomp with a Victory Star Destroyer on a crowd of people or sucking a world dry because they didn't have enough dark side point, the canon Empire wasn't that terrible until the destruction of Alderaan.

They didn't have death camps, didn't usually allow slavery of sapients, still had voters rights, and weren't doing obvious atrocities that Joe Average Spaceman would know about. To Mr Average Spaceman the Empire was far superior to the corrupt and ineffectual Republic, the Empire allowed him to serve to fight groups that tore the galaxy apart like the Separatists. Even let women and minorities serve despite the EU saying the Empire was a white male club. Possibly even canon let damn dirty aliens serve.

Most of the examples of the Empire being blatantly evil are stuff from the old EU, most of the "torture, racism, slavery, and the use of strategic weaponry on civilian population centres" is no longer canon. Shit like I already mentioned, the enslavement of the Wookiees, the enslavement of the Mon Calamari with Tarkin personally owning Ackbar because everyone knows everyone apparently, disbarring anyone not white and male and human from serving beyond some very rare cases, and probably more I'm forgetting. The founding of the Empire by an dark wizard through treason, war crimes, and deception is probably not know in universe. The slaughtering of the Jedi is probably known but is probably accepted as just what with Palpatine saying they were in active rebellion and tried to kill him (giving him a literal butthead in the process) and take over the Senate. Very few people are going to argue Palpatine smacking the Rebels like the reddest headest steppest child in the world when they gave him a face that makes Rocky Dennis looks like a handsome sonofabitch.

The Empire only became blatantly evil when they decided to blow up a planet of millions for supporting terrorist traitor scum. That was probably the wake-up call for many the Empire was evil. Though even then some could make the argument is was justified, the planet was in open Rebellion with its Princess stealing state secrets, its soldiers attacking and killing Imperial soldiers, and providing substantial material and financial aid to a terrorist organization that sucked and was totally terrible you guys. To clarify I don't think this, other then the Rebellion sucking, but certainly someone in universe might think so without being a total asshole.

Hell even if people thought it was bad then it could have easily been blamed on Tarkin with SHEEV Palpatine condemning the destruction of Alderaan. According to old background material Palpatine was extremely well loved with most of the governmental problems being blamed on people taking advantage of kindly old Palps, that he was seen as a powerless figurehead.

So its not exactly a stretch to think good people would serve the Empire. Good people would sign up to protect the galaxy from "evil spoonbenders" or corrupt corporate influences, would serve their nation and their beloved leader, would fight against what as far as they know are the evil terroristic Rebels trying to destroy the legitimate government and restore the corrupt and decayed Old Republic.

Also the Empire looked far cooler. How could anyone support the Rebels with their tired ass threads? Orange jumpsuits and fish bowl helmets with a not at all stylish vests? Thats the real crime, a crime of fashion. The Empire even when massacring whole entire worlds looked fucking good.

[Lord Revan]

The Romulan Republic you should read the "Death Star" novel from the legendaries line, it shows how you can easily make imperial protagonist that's generally a good guy without white washing the imperial attrocities, sure they defect in the end Spoiler

the ones that survive at least

but they weren't conned to join the empire.

In fact what they think or the rebellion ranges from "misguided fools" to "terrorist trying to return the anarchy and corruption of the Clone Wars", though those opinions change during the novel due to the full extent of the attrocities of the empire coming to light. Also it has nice depiction Tarkin not as cartoon villain who does evil for the sake of evil, but rather as someone so detached for the lives of regular imperial citizens that he does unspeakble attrocities without any hint of passion about, only thinking them as a nessecity.

[SpottedKitty]

So its not exactly a stretch to think good people would serve the Empire. Good people would sign up to protect the galaxy from "evil spoonbenders" or corrupt corporate influences, would serve their nation and their beloved leader, would fight against what as far as they know are the evil terroristic Rebels trying to destroy the legitimate government and restore the corrupt and decayed Old Republic.

FWIW, I think I remember characters briefly discussing this way back in the original novelisation, in an early scene.

And of course, if you want to veer towards the fan film side of the Force, there's TROOPS! and IMPS: The Relentless...

[Simon_Jester]

Realistically, yes, there are plenty of ground-level characters who no doubt joined the Imperial armed forces out of good motives, or because they really believed in the mission to bring 'peace and order' to the galaxy.

However, the Empire as a whole is a blatantly abusive state wherever it can get away with it. It propagandizes its own population (which is how it gets decent people to sign up in the first place). Sure, all the major abuses the Empire committed in the old EU have been decanonized, but we still have Alderaan (the primordial Imperial atrocity) and the behavior of their stormtroopers on Tatooine and Bespin (the only places we ever saw Imperial personnel in direct contact with a civilian population).

And while I don't follow the Rebels TV show, I bet you that it's in the process of busily 'recanonizing' the Empire's evils, even if it portrays them happening in different ways on different planets. Within five or ten years, as the new Disney canon expands to reach something comparable to the scale of the old canon, that process will no doubt bring things back to the status quo of 'Empire is actually quite horrible.'

I mean, in a real sense, Disney's decanonization of the old EU just 'resets the clock' on Star Wars canon back to 1983, effectively erasing the material released after that date. We* knew as much then as we do now, and in 1983 no one with a brain seriously doubted that the Empire were the atrocity-prone bad guys and that opposing them was right and good.
______________________

*In a non-inclusive sense of 'we,' because I wasn't alive then...

[The Romulan Republic]

The Disney version of the Empire does seem to be maybe less racist (to non-white humans anyway) and sexist, from what I've seen.

However, I want to note that every single Imperial atrocity I cited, with the possible exception of slavery (and I think even that one), has basis in the films and Rebels, not the old EU. And their is no excuse that can justify that.

[Galvatron]

We already have two major characters who are sympathetic Imperials in the new EU and both of them are non-white women: Admiral Rae Sloane and Commander Ciena Ree. Ciena Ree's arc has already been more or less finished, but Sloane is still out there...

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Personally, I'd love to see something along the lines of the SD.Net famous fanfic story of "Hull no. 721". Or something that's kind of like Firefly meets Star Wars: a ship's captain trying to make his way in the galaxy and avoid too many 'Imperial entanglements', with a contrasting Imperial captain who is trying to hunt them down or something.

If they did green-light it, what kind of Imperial POV movie would you guys and gals want to see?

Hull 721 would make a great movie/TV series, as would something along the lines of I.M.P.S.(though a little less tongue in cheek).

[Lord Revan]

We already have two major characters who are sympathetic Imperials in the new EU and both of them are non-white women: Admiral Rae Sloane and Commander Ciena Ree. Ciena Ree's arc has already been more or less finished, but Sloane is still out there...

while white as far as we know, didn't we get slightly sympathetic PoV of the female minister of Lothal in the end and even before that she seemed more like "detached from the reality of the situation" then "doing evil for the sake of evil".

[Sea Skimmer]

Forever is a long time, and what Disney has. Disney will splurge on movies for a while, and then put major Star Wars products on the back burner for a while, perhaps a 10 year gap after 10-15 years of heavy movie making. I think once the splurge has petered out an Imperial movie wouldn't be impossible as a way to toss up the mixture, though it might be (fully) animated or otherwise distinct from the main part of the franchise. Heck 15 years from now we may reach the point of AI programs being able to do large amounts of the work for such products, with drastic reductions in cost, and that would really open up options. Right now the top end CGI movies actually cost more per minute then a typical live action action movie does.

I can see many forms that would work without making the Empire openly heroic. Imagine for example a movie like Aliens, with Imperial Troops replacing the Colonial Marines and some kind of force using alien monster as the enemy. Or Imperial troops mixed up with the Hutt Empire (no idea on its present canon but its one of those ideas I think they will adapt) or similar ambiguous situations. A lot will also depend on how the present trilogy is going to get resolved, and what it leaves open. At one point rumor was we were going to have both a new empire and an imperial remnant competing, and that kind of idea might still be tossed around. An Empire with no evil force user fighting an Empire which does have an evil wizard king would be fun.

[Galvatron]

So the Fel Empire by another name then. That may be what we end up with anyway, if Leia gets elected queen of the galaxy.

[APlayerHater]

I can see many forms that would work without making the Empire openly heroic. Imagine for example a movie like Aliens, with Imperial Troops replacing the Colonial Marines and some kind of force using alien monster as the enemy.

I JUST SAID THA-

Anyway, I just want them to give me 'something' to justify the "there are heroes on both sides" in the crawl. I mean, obviously, most people in the Empire are just trying to do their jobs. And there are at least a couple films about WW2 from Germany's viewpoint, Including Downfall and Cross of Iron. Even if you're not portraying them sympathetically, you can still make a movie centering on them.

A movie about storm troopers cracking down on people and enforcing Imperial justice would at least give us some kind of information about why the common people like Luke actually hate the Empire to begin with. I mean, sure, they burned Luke's aunt and uncle alive (?) and went around blowing up planets, but those don't really fill us in about the every day kind of stuff that would cause people to rebel, but Luke already hated them before they affected him personally. -What we see in the Empire-centric scenes generally applies to DVader and GMoff Tarkin, as well as some other jackbooted officer-types. In a stormtrooper movie we could really try to see what goes through a stormtrooper's head.

They're going to be making a new film every year until we run out of light to be filmed, and they're making so many spinoffs I'd think there would be plenty of room to go in depth on the stormtrooper. Unfortunately, or fortunately, SW's brand is all about exciting adventures with lots of gun slinging, swashbuckling and space battles. Something about the Empire dominating and occupying territory would probably be too slow and remind people too much of the senate scenes in the prequels.

That, and the higher ups at Disney probably don't want to complicate things by pretending that the people gunned down En Masse deserve any kind of sympathy from the audience or people will start asking questions that might hurt their overall narrative of good v evil. It certainly seemed like Phasma existed to make all stormtroopers look cowardly; TFA has the most sympathetic view of the badguys in any SW movie and that's mostly because I feel sorry for them for being inept and 90% bluster.

And if you 'were' to make a movie about stormtroopers cracking down and committing atrocities would probably just be seen as too dark and not kid friendly enough.

[Solauren]

I'd like to see a movie like the support material that was for the Tie Fighter games.

Imperial pilot, recruited, and he spends tours going after pirates and the like, maybe even stepping in to stop a civil war that is killing thousands, etc.
Then, eventually, when he serves under the really high ups, he learns what the Empire is at it's core, and has to make a decision about serving loyally, resigning, or defecting.

[Soontir C'boath]

Can I just say, that we do have movies made for a country that is not exactly in the right and good? Say, the United States of America. Invading Iraq on false evidence, drone strikes, torture of enemy combatants, instigating coups for oil and money, regime changes, etc, etc, etc. We seem to be doing fine making war movies for this country and ignoring those bad things to boot!

I would make it about going after the Rebellion with the Imperials believing the Rebels are the bad guys. Nothing complicated there.