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

[chimericoncogene]

If the ST went with suggestions made above and discarded the Force subplot entirely, might there be an alternative galacto-political conflict that could be set up other than Imperial Remnant vs New Republic vs Anarchy (that is the logical choice, but might to some people evoke Clone Wars II)?

The Yuzhen Vong are waaay overplayed, and organic technology is not very interesting. How about the Chiss? The Ancient Astronauts coming back? Or a new hyperspace route through the Deep Core that opens up a fresh frontier for settlement (although much of the Outer Rim is still unsettled, so that's a little silly). Or maybe the collapse of the Hutt Sector (Leia strangling Jabba has consequences...) opens up the Outer Rim to a free-for-all scramble for territory?

[ray245]

If the ST went with suggestions made above and discarded the Force subplot entirely, might there be an alternative galacto-political conflict that could be set up other than Imperial Remnant vs New Republic vs Anarchy (that is the logical choice, but might to some people evoke Clone Wars II)?

The Yuzhen Vong are waaay overplayed, and organic technology is not very interesting. How about the Chiss? The Ancient Astronauts coming back? Or a new hyperspace route through the Deep Core that opens up a fresh frontier for settlement (although much of the Outer Rim is still unsettled, so that's a little silly). Or maybe the collapse of the Hutt Sector (Leia strangling Jabba has consequences...) opens up the Outer Rim to a free-for-all scramble for territory?

Or you set up a smaller scale conflict. Ep 1 didn't have a intergalactic wide conflict to show massive scale on screen. A battle between different sectors is still going to be a war that involves hundreds of planets, thousands and ships and etc. A more militarised Galaxy ( because the Galaxy had been so overrmilitarised during the Empire) in which different planets have big massive fleet of their own is going to be challenging for our heroes. And it adds to the whole peace-keeper aspects of the Jedi, when they have to find a way to maintain peace in a more militarised and fractured galaxy.

Luke and his Jedi Order have to stop sector-wide wars from happening between member states, or among the non-aligned states.

[chimericoncogene]

Or you set up a smaller scale conflict. Ep 1 didn't have a intergalactic wide conflict to show massive scale on screen. A battle between different sectors is still going to be a war that involves hundreds of planets, thousands and ships and etc. A more militarised Galaxy (because the Galaxy had been so overrmilitarised during the Empire) in which different planets have big massive fleet of their own is going to be challenging for our heroes. And it adds to the whole peace-keeper aspects of the Jedi, when they have to find a way to maintain peace in a more militarised and fractured galaxy.

Luke and his Jedi Order have to stop sector-wide wars from happening between member states, or among the non-aligned states.

Yeah, but we've seen that already in Ep I (on a somewhat smaller scale). Stopping one war would make a good Ep VII, but what about VIII or IX? As the EU found out, warlord of the week gets old real fast, even when you have characters as interesting as Thrawn or Isard or Daala.

And the Jedi peacekeeper thing didn't quite work out for the Old Order...
While not strictly necessary, some overarching story for around 2-3 movies would be desirable. Not as easy to make it integrate if you go the warlord-of-the-week route. I suppose you could detach a movie...

[ray245]

Yeah, but we've seen that already in Ep I (on a somewhat smaller scale). Stopping one war would make a good Ep VII, but what about VIII or IX? As the EU found out, warlord of the week gets old real fast, even when you have characters as interesting as Thrawn or Isard or Daala.

And the Jedi peacekeeper thing didn't quite work out for the Old Order...
While not strictly necessary, some overarching story for around 2-3 movies would be desirable. Not as easy to make it integrate if you go the warlord-of-the-week route. I suppose you could detach a movie...

Have a smaller scale war that still take ages to resolve over 2-3 movies. The entire sequel trilogy took place over the course of a single war. You can easily have a planetary war that takes longer than that.

Shift the story away from intergalactic war and give the characters more personal stakes. People care more about a character's personal stakes than a big intergalactic War. Have the characters be directly tied to the local conflict. Say the conflict is in their homeworld and etc, and they have to operate without NR backing because of netural worlds.

Hell, look at what Season 7 of the Clone Wars did with the Seige of Mandalore. It's a small local conflict that took a long time to be resolved.

[Gunhead]

Fair enough Ray.
I don't think the scale of the conflict as such matters, it's getting the viewer to care about the conflict. I in principle agree with RR that the space chase in TLJ was a good a idea but the execution was..... GAAARBAAAGEEEE!!!!! I mean for fucks sake, when I think all the things you could've done with it... like.. make Holdo not be a useless twat.. ok that's a side note but really, Not only could you have used the chase to make the NO more competent and menacing, you could've shown some cool space pew pew and as I said, if it had been done correctly it could've paid off on Poe's admiration towards Holdo and engage the viewer making people give a shit. The my little pony club dress would've still been totally inexcusable but I would've gladly overlooked that if they had given Holdo something to fight back with. Case in point the fight at the end of ROTJ and also the excellent battle at the end of Rogue 1.

-Gunhead

[ray245]

Fair enough Ray.
I don't think the scale of the conflict as such matters, it's getting the viewer to care about the conflict. I in principle agree with RR that the space chase in TLJ was a good a idea but the execution was..... GAAARBAAAGEEEE!!!!! I mean for fucks sake, when I think all the things you could've done with it... like.. make Holdo not be a useless twat.. ok that's a side note but really, Not only could you have used the chase to make the NO more competent and menacing, you could've shown some cool space pew pew and as I said, if it had been done correctly it could've paid off on Poe's admiration towards Holdo and engage the viewer making people give a shit. The my little pony club dress would've still been totally inexcusable but I would've gladly overlooked that if they had given Holdo something to fight back with. Case in point the fight at the end of ROTJ and also the excellent battle at the end of Rogue 1.

-Gunhead

I mean what's the point of the sequels giving us another intergalactic war when we barely even see what's going on in the Galaxy? And people outside of the resistant vs First Order bubble seems to barely care about the conflict ( Canto Bright, the planet with the festivals and etc)

[chimericoncogene]

Have a smaller scale war that still take ages to resolve over 2-3 movies. The entire sequel trilogy took place over the course of a single war. You can easily have a planetary war that takes longer than that.

Shift the story away from intergalactic war and give the characters more personal stakes. People care more about a character's personal stakes than a big intergalactic War. Have the characters be directly tied to the local conflict. Say the conflict is in their homeworld and etc, and they have to operate without NR backing because of netural worlds.
Hell, look at what Season 7 of the Clone Wars did with the Seige of Mandalore. It's a small local conflict that took a long time to be resolved.

I loved that as much as the next kid, and I'm sure such a conflict would be a lot of fun to watch (I'd certainly love it), but should mainline movies really operate on (galactically) lower stakes? And the implication of such a move is that the wheel of galactic history doesn't really look like it's turning dramatically, so you're going to have some slight setting issues (even if say, the New Republic consolidates and sends more and more men into your local fight as time goes on, it's not quite earth-shattering). It's a setting, but it's one setting that doesn't really have an endpoint yet (and knowing an endpoint helps shape the setting - e.g. collapsing Old Republic = loss of faith in institutions, Jedi, etc.).

But I agree that such a movie - or even a trilogy of such small-scale movies - would have made reasonable sense in place of VII and/or VIII and IX. Training wheels were in order for the new generation of directors. If they came out well, then experience for a more epic conflict could have been readily set up.

I personally would prefer some galactic change for mainline movies (instead of say, a Hutt Sector Trilogy or Wild Space Trilogy - those already sound awesome), but I concede that it is not strictly necessary (dunno what the audience will think though, even after watching all three of them), and agree completely that having a compelling conflict is much more important than a large conflict.

Marvel didn't start with Avengers 1. They started small, with Iron Man 1. Given that Disney was in charge of Marvel, they should have learned from their success and gone down the same route, testing the waters and flexing their muscles as they went, instead of leaping into Ep VII feet first like DC did with the debacle that was Batman vs Superman and Justice League 1.

[Gunhead]

I mean what's the point of the sequels giving us another intergalactic war when we barely even see what's going on in the Galaxy? And people outside of the resistant vs First Order bubble seems to barely care about the conflict ( Canto Bright, the planet with the festivals and etc)

I'd say that there is no point but in case of TFA it's pretty double pointless since the actual conflict is over in the first 15 minutes. Which I was alluding to in my post, you have to get the viewer invested and in this case the big mistake of TFA is not the size of the conflict but their inability to get the viewer to care. I mean sure they're rehashing OT sure, but it wouldn't be so erroneous if they've spend some time giving the characters and also the audience some reason to give a fuck. To be blunt, even if we can well comprehend that in that blast billions of people just got vaporized, they're all fictional and more importantly, it's billions of people we don't know.
This works far better in New Hope because, while we don't know people of Alderaan, we have some connection with Leia and Tarkin in true EVIL fashion blasts the planet to bits anyway so we get to also hate him thus we are far more emotionally invested.


-Gunhead

[ray245]

I loved that as much as the next kid, and I'm sure such a conflict would be a lot of fun to watch (I'd certainly love it), but should mainline movies really operate on (galactically) lower stakes? And the implication of such a move is that the wheel of galactic history doesn't really look like it's turning dramatically, so you're going to have some slight setting issues (even if say, the New Republic consolidates and sends more and more men into your local fight as time goes on, it's not quite earth-shattering). It's a setting, but it's one setting that doesn't really have an endpoint yet (and knowing an endpoint helps shape the setting - e.g. collapsing Old Republic = loss of faith in institutions, Jedi, etc.).

Have the NR be overstretched because conflicts are happening simultaneously all over the Galaxy, or the NR not having the political will to engage in more military conflicts. Instead of one big major conflict, you can have multiple smaller conflict for the NR to deal with at once. The conflict we focus on is simply the conflict that has the most personal stakes for our heroes.

Like how WW2 merge from a bunch of different conflicts ( Japan's war against China got merged into WW2 proper after Pearl Harbour), the same can happen with the sequels. We are just hearing the stories about one "front" of a larger conflict.

But I agree that such a movie - or even a trilogy of such small-scale movies - would have made reasonable sense in place of VII and/or VIII and IX. Training wheels were in order for the new generation of directors. If they came out well, then experience for a more epic conflict could have been readily set up.

I personally would prefer some galactic change for mainline movies (instead of say, a Hutt Sector Trilogy or Wild Space Trilogy - those already sound awesome), but I concede that it is not strictly necessary (dunno what the audience will think though, even after watching all three of them), and agree completely that having a compelling conflict is much more important than a large conflict.

Marvel didn't start with Avengers 1. They started small, with Iron Man 1. Given that Disney was in charge of Marvel, they should have learned from their success and gone down the same route, testing the waters and flexing their muscles as they went, instead of leaping into Ep VII feet first like DC did with the debacle that was Batman vs Superman and Justice League 1.

At the least DC knew they were trying to rush things. Abrams barely even know he is rushing things.

[ray245]

I'd say that there is no point but in case of TFA it's pretty double pointless since the actual conflict is over in the first 15 minutes. Which I was alluding to in my post, you have to get the viewer invested and in this case the big mistake of TFA is not the size of the conflict but their inability to get the viewer to care. I mean sure they're rehashing OT sure, but it wouldn't be so erroneous if they've spend some time giving the characters and also the audience some reason to give a fuck. To be blunt, even if we can well comprehend that in that blast billions of people just got vaporized, they're all fictional and more importantly, it's billions of people we don't know.
This works far better in New Hope because, while we don't know people of Alderaan, we have some connection with Leia and Tarkin in true EVIL fashion blasts the planet to bits anyway so we get to also hate him thus we are far more emotionally invested.


-Gunhead

They tried to get people to care by recycling the exact same conflict. New evil Stormtroopers and etc. Abrams never gave a fuck about how many people got blown up. He keeps blowing up planets after planets to make things feel scary, just like how he blew up Vulcan, Romulus and half of San Francisco in his movies.

[chimericoncogene]

Have the NR be overstretched because conflicts are happening simultaneously all over the Galaxy, or the NR not having the political will to engage in more military conflicts. Instead of one big major conflict, you can have multiple smaller conflict for the NR to deal with at once. The conflict we focus on is simply the conflict that has the most personal stakes for our heroes.

Like how WW2 merge from a bunch of different conflicts ( Japan's war against China got merged into WW2 proper after Pearl Harbour), the same can happen with the sequels. We are just hearing the stories about one "front" of a larger conflict.

Yeah, but we know how World War II ends, and it ending is the climactic part. I know the Clone Wars was awesome, and multi-theater wars are normal, but the wars can't last forever (yes, realistically the mess could easily last decades, but we want to wrap things up at some point to bound the setting).

This would make a great series of movies, but eventually we'll have to go back to finding a new more-orderly galactic equilibrium, even if it is a multi-polar galaxy with a space UN (Galactic Alliance?) barely keeping trade going. The establishment of this new order (or whatever positive/negative change comes about at the end of the most-chaotic time period) would necessarily be an tale that may or may not eventually deserve movies of its own. Like I said, maybe that would be a better job for X XI XII.

Fundamentally, I think the takeaway is that Disney should not have tried touching Episode VII (or a movie with galactic significance) until they had a solid set of successful movies.

[ray245]

Yeah, but we know how World War II ends, and it ending is the climactic part. I know the Clone Wars was awesome, and multi-theater wars are normal, but the wars can't last forever (yes, realistically the mess could easily last decades, but we want to wrap things up at some point to bound the setting).

This would make a great series of movies, but eventually we'll have to go back to finding a new more-orderly galactic equilibrium, even if it is a multi-polar galaxy with a space UN (Galactic Alliance?) barely keeping trade going. The establishment of this new order (or whatever positive/negative change comes about at the end of the most-chaotic time period) would necessarily be an tale that may or may not eventually deserve movies of its own. Like I said, maybe that would be a better job for X XI XII.

It just need to last for 3 movies. Then if you want the conflict to culminate in a bigger conflict, you can just merge them into a bigger conflict 3-4 movies down the line.

[Gunhead]

They tried to get people to care by recycling the exact same conflict. New evil Stormtroopers and etc. Abrams never gave a fuck about how many people got blown up. He keeps blowing up planets after planets to make things feel scary, just like how he blew up Vulcan, Romulus and half of San Francisco in his movies.

Yes, that is pretty much accurate and I totally agree he's lazy. I was more going with "Well since you asked". You're obviously more annoyed by the lack of originality than I am but yea I do agree that they should've put more effort into the plot or at least if they're going to rehash something do it right. That said, if the whole New Order vs. Rebels is just the back drop for the main plot... yea you can get away with it if the characters are good. Were the main characters good in TFA you might ask... eh.. they weren't horrible either. Serviceable is the word which is why I said that I think something worthwhile could've been saved from TFA. But sure, for all points and purposes I agree that the rehashing of the OT super weapon shtick was poorly done and unimaginative.

-Gunhead

[chimericoncogene]

It just need to last for 3 movies. Then if you want the conflict to culminate in a bigger conflict, you can just merge them into a bigger conflict 3-4 movies down the line.

I'm just being a little semantic, and worrying about the pragmatics.

While slapping an Episode VII label instead of a (e.g.) "Wild Space I" label on your movie will likely draw a wider audience and more ticket sales, if audiences don't get what they expect (and they may expect high stakes, I dunno), this decision to "mis-label" the movie (from the PoV of certain purists, fans, etc) might create... an undesirable backlash and poor ticket sales for Episode VIII (instead of "Wild Space II"). Renaming movies is a thing in Star Wars, but that's a stout bet.

I'd be totally fine with it, especially if executed competently, but the world is not composed entirely of copies of me.

Of course, if the movie is super-compelling, it might go through fine either way. Since Gunhead, an apparently more casual viewer (?) seems to agree that lower stakes would not matter one whit, that is indeed promising.

[The Romulan Republic]

Going from my pre-Disney films memories:

My Sequel Trilogy would likely have had a fractured galaxy, with the NR being the biggest power and the Empire gone, but with the Rebellion not being able to control the entire galaxy due to a lack of any means- a small fleet, lack of a strong Jedi Order, and inability to rely on Palpatine's terror tactics. So the NR controlling portions of the galaxy, and the rest being a collection of independent systems, crime lords, etc. The story would have probably been Jacen and Jaina Solo as the younger heroes, fighting crime lords or local tyrants in the Outer Rim, though there would have been a new Dark Side villain, NOT a Sith, maybe Jacen falling eventually.

Now, with hindsight, and in light of the changing cultural and political situation in the real world, and these discussions here, I'd probably modify it a bit. Leia would likely get forced out of government by an increasingly corrupt Republic who is no longer interested in funding campaigns to save the galaxy. She'd go back to conducting "mercy missions" as a cover for aiding resistance groups. Luke's journey would be about realizing that he cannot remain apolitical and neutral, nor can he return things to the status quo. Jacen and Jaina would still be there, but there'd also be some OC heroes, perhaps modeled after Rey, Finn, Poe, and Rose, who would represent the "ordinary" people of the galaxy. The ones without a special heritage or destiny. And who the Skywalker clan would ultimately help, and pass the torch to, to complete the revolution that the old elites could not (including abolishing slavery). I might have Palpatine as a spectre haunting and tempting Kylo/Jacen.

[The Romulan Republic]

Fair enough Ray.
I don't think the scale of the conflict as such matters, it's getting the viewer to care about the conflict. I in principle agree with RR that the space chase in TLJ was a good a idea but the execution was..... GAAARBAAAGEEEE!!!!! I mean for fucks sake, when I think all the things you could've done with it... like.. make Holdo not be a useless twat.. ok that's a side note but really, Not only could you have used the chase to make the NO more competent and menacing, you could've shown some cool space pew pew and as I said, if it had been done correctly it could've paid off on Poe's admiration towards Holdo and engage the viewer making people give a shit. The my little pony club dress would've still been totally inexcusable but I would've gladly overlooked that if they had given Holdo something to fight back with. Case in point the fight at the end of ROTJ and also the excellent battle at the end of Rogue 1.

-Gunhead

Sigh. I really, really don't want to have this fight again, but you went there, so...

Attacking Holdo over her appearance/clothing, and calling her a "useless twat" ("twat" being slang for a female's gentiles), are the kind of comments that really do reek of casual sexism. It is, at the very least, an ill-advised choice of words, especially given the controversies around the film and the backlash against it, and it distracts from any valid point you might have been trying to make.

Also, Holdo overpowered the mutineers who captured her and then sacrificed herself as a decoy before single-handedly taking out the most powerful fleet seen on-screen in a Star Wars film up to that point (if you don't count super weapons) by ramming it. What more does she have to do to prove her usefulness, and ability. Heck, even her big failures (the loss of the escort ships, the stealth transport escape being detected) seem to have been results of following a plan she inherited from Leia, and of Poe not understanding the concept of communicating on a secure channel, respectively.

I get thinking Holdo's useless or evil the first time 'round, because the film deliberately tries to trick you into thinking that. I even get people thinking she's underdeveloped, because due to the subversion/twist she kind of is. But with hindsight, it should be obvious that she was doing everything she could in an impossible situation to keep her people alive.

Also, I never hear anybody complain about Leia wearing a dress. Just saying.

[Eternal_Freedom]

As an idea off the top of my head, in order to do something different but still including the Force/Jedi etc, I think it could have been interesting if there weren't any Sith, or even Dark Siders, but that the non-Force-sensitive population (or a few charismatic leaders) stand up after Endor and say "ok, you space wizards have been causing galaxy-wide chaos and oppression for decades now, and enough is enough, we want you gone."

Have the conflict be the mundanes vs the gifted, the muggles vs the wizards, neither side has to be dark/evil, both can have a solid basis for their views, you can explore the galaxy somewhat, and you can have it leading into/trying to prevent a New Republic Civil War between pro and anti-Force/Jedi factions.

From an outside perspective, I recognise that the Force and Jedi/Sith, Light/Dark conflict are core elements of the universe, but seemingly every single galactic-scale conflict is caused by their (effectively) religious differences. Some of the best EU books I read (and still read) were the Wraith Squadron books that didn't feature Force-users at all. An anti-Force-user backlash (on the quite reasonable grounds that the different sects keep causing massive wars) would be a very interesting setting for a sequel trilogy.

You can even work in Luke's quandary of "what/who should the Jedi be in this new galaxy?" as part of it as well.

I should also stress that this is entirely off the top of my head and I haven't put any great amount of time into thinking about it, just reading this thread.

[The Romulan Republic]

As an idea off the top of my head, in order to do something different but still including the Force/Jedi etc, I think it could have been interesting if there weren't any Sith, or even Dark Siders, but that the non-Force-sensitive population (or a few charismatic leaders) stand up after Endor and say "ok, you space wizards have been causing galaxy-wide chaos and oppression for decades now, and enough is enough, we want you gone."

Have the conflict be the mundanes vs the gifted, the muggles vs the wizards, neither side has to be dark/evil, both can have a solid basis for their views, you can explore the galaxy somewhat, and you can have it leading into/trying to prevent a New Republic Civil War between pro and anti-Force/Jedi factions.

I'm pretty sure trying to commit genocide of a group of people based on their biology qualifies as evil.

You could have such a conflict, but it would only work if the "kill all the Force users" faction was portrayed as unambiguously evil. Otherwise, it'd be flat-out genocide apologism. And even then, you'd inevitably get a large segment of fans cheering the extermination of the Force users.

From an outside perspective, I recognise that the Force and Jedi/Sith, Light/Dark conflict are core elements of the universe, but seemingly every single galactic-scale conflict is caused by their (effectively) religious differences. Some of the best EU books I read (and still read) were the Wraith Squadron books that didn't feature Force-users at all. An anti-Force-user backlash (on the quite reasonable grounds that the different sects keep causing massive wars) would be a very interesting setting for a sequel trilogy.

You can even work in Luke's quandary of "what/who should the Jedi be in this new galaxy?" as part of it as well.

I should also stress that this is entirely off the top of my head and I haven't put any great amount of time into thinking about it, just reading this thread.

At best, its basically X-men in space. Which... wouldn't be awful, actually. But you can't "shades of grey" genocide of sapient beings.

[Eternal_Freedom]

You jumped to the conclusion I meant genocide then with "enough, we want you gone." As in, leave. Not be involved in galactic affairs. Go explore the next galaxy over or something, but stop causing massive wars.

[chimericoncogene]

Genocide is hardly necessary. Many levels of increasingly less reasonable restrictions are entirely possible. It is interesting to note that the galaxy, at least initially, didn't miss the Jedi that much after Order 66, which was justified on a wave of anti-force-user/anti-Jedi sentiment. The line Palps fed the masses, it seems, was that the Jedi got power hungry, tried to launch a coup and assassinate the Supreme Chancellor, and got shot down to preserve order and democracy in the galaxy.

So the theme's kinda been done before, in a limited fashion in the Clone Wars cartoon.

1. Jedi Order stays ten parsecs away from politics, and should focus on Force-related science and engineering/hyperspace exploration instead of peacekeeping. Back to your roots.
2. No Jedi Order.
3. Forbid any and all training of the force-sensitive
4. Actively discriminate against trained force-users. You can read and control minds? No running for public office for you.
5. Actively discriminate against all force-users. You might be able to read minds? I'm not letting you into my bureaucracy - what if you cheat on the entrance exam?
6. Active discrimination against force users in all spheres.

After that we get to the nasty stuff.

[chimericoncogene]

Also, force sensitives are rare - one in ten billion rare at least. Powerful force sensitives at least an order of magnitude rarer. Is is so bad to discriminate against the one dude on Earth with mind control powes?

Heck, with this kind of rarity (10k-100k total potential good force users in a galaxy with at least a million inhabited systems) - does this even still fall into a discriminatory category?

Seriously, anything else than banning the Jedi Order or organized training would be gross overkill.

[ray245]

Yes, that is pretty much accurate and I totally agree he's lazy. I was more going with "Well since you asked". You're obviously more annoyed by the lack of originality than I am but yea I do agree that they should've put more effort into the plot or at least if they're going to rehash something do it right. That said, if the whole New Order vs. Rebels is just the back drop for the main plot... yea you can get away with it if the characters are good. Were the main characters good in TFA you might ask... eh.. they weren't horrible either. Serviceable is the word which is why I said that I think something worthwhile could've been saved from TFA. But sure, for all points and purposes I agree that the rehashing of the OT super weapon shtick was poorly done and unimaginative.

-Gunhead

The problem I identified right after TFA came out is you are stuck having to retell variation of ESB and ROTJ if you create a set-up like TFA. It destroys opportunities for original story-telling for other directors as well.

[The Romulan Republic]

You jumped to the conclusion I meant genocide then with "enough, we want you gone." As in, leave. Not be involved in galactic affairs. Go explore the next galaxy over or something, but stop causing massive wars.

Still would be ethnic cleansing, if you expelled them from the galaxy.

Forbidding their involvement in politics would be discrimination, obviously, but not genocide or ethnic cleansing in and of itself, no.

Also, force sensitives are rare - one in ten billion rare at least. Powerful force sensitives at least an order of magnitude rarer. Is is so bad to discriminate against the one dude on Earth with mind control powes?

Heck, with this kind of rarity (10k-100k total potential good force users in a galaxy with at least a million inhabited systems) - does this even still fall into a discriminatory category?

Seriously, anything else than banning the Jedi Order or organized training would be gross overkill.

10,000 Jedi. There were a lot of Force users the oh-so-picky Jedi never trained. Probably nobody knows how many.

Genocide is hardly necessary. Many levels of increasingly less reasonable restrictions are entirely possible.

And can be a precursor to genocide.

Now there's an interesting story/cautionary tale: the galactic government starts out with "reasonable" restrictions, but extremism elements keep pushing it further and further, and the Jedi/other Force users resist, which makes the public more scared, which leads to harsher crackdowns, until one day its Order 66 all over again.

It is interesting to note that the galaxy, at least initially, didn't miss the Jedi that much after Order 66, which was justified on a wave of anti-force-user/anti-Jedi sentiment. The line Palps fed the masses, it seems, was that the Jedi got power hungry, tried to launch a coup and assassinate the Supreme Chancellor, and got shot down to preserve order and democracy in the galaxy.

Palpatine is a classic dictator, spinning lies to give the public a scapegoat.

Yeah, its been done, but it wasn't the main focus of the story.

So the theme's kinda been done before, in a limited fashion in the Clone Wars cartoon.

1. Jedi Order stays ten parsecs away from politics, and should focus on Force-related science and engineering/hyperspace exploration instead of peacekeeping. Back to your roots.

You could probably justify this to an extent as preventing the creation of a superpowered ruling elite.

2. No Jedi Order.

Religious discrimination.

3. Forbid any and all training of the force-sensitive

Dangerous. Very strong Force users can use it even without training. And not training them could increase the risk of accidents, and of them going Dark Side.

4. Actively discriminate against trained force-users. You can read and control minds? No running for public office for you.

Seems like just a variation on number one, really.

5. Actively discriminate against all force-users. You might be able to read minds? I'm not letting you into my bureaucracy - what if you cheat on the entrance exam?

At this point we're getting deep into second class citizenship territory.

6. Active discrimination against force users in all spheres.

After that we get to the nasty stuff.

The extra-nasty Palpatine Mark II stuff.

Although... superpowered beings as an analogy for persecuted minorities can run into some problems. Because, you know, they're powerful, and persecuted minorities in the real world generally aren't. So it can come off as unintentionally saying "Yeah, the people who view the persecuted minorities as a threat have a point", and/or "Why are we supposed to feel bad for this superpowered elite?" You can try to portray it as saying "even people who do pose a threat or have extraordinary power deserve protection", or as empowering, but its... tricky. X-Men has this problem at times.

An interesting alternative, which I don't think the franchise has done in any major way, would be for the government to instead try to control Force users. You're a state asset: you get trained and liscenced by the government, go where we say, do what we say. And Luke resists, because he wants to remain apolitical. And here's Leia, the Force-sensitive politician, caught in the middle.

And then the Jedi run into some characters from the Outer Rim or the underbelly of Coruscant or Corellia who's attitude is basically "Oh, the government is treating you like property? Boo-fucking-hoo, we've been slaves of the Hutts or the Empire since forever, and we don't have special powers or fancy tech." And the story becomes about rising up to overthrow the systemic slavery which existed under Republic and Empire alike.

Though that could very easily have a more libertarian slant than I intended.

[Adam Reynolds]

The idea of an anti-Force user faction runs into several problems. The most obvious of which is that oppressed mages are a horrible analogy. Either we are siding with the oppressors, or you're inevitably going to make the group you want to portray as oppressors too sympathetic. The deeper problem is the question of how this is possible. While you could get some who argue in favor of going after the Jedi in the aftermath of the Empire, unless the Empire remains in power in some weakened form, it would not be easy to vilify the man who blew up the Death Star and killed Vader and the Emperor(the truth of that situation was likely not revealed, nor would it be believed all that easily).

From a marketing standpoint, it leads to another problem. Disney is never going to do anything with such obvious real world political implications. Especially when they want to sell lightsabers as being inherently heroic. Perhaps more importantly a group with the level of power that they have are not going to endorse anything that will cause people to question the nature of power structures. Disney movies today have embraced the idea of the good capitalist, which is exactly opposite this.

[chimericoncogene]

Nonetheless, I think that a good answer to the role of the Jedi Order would be to go back to exploration and scientific study of the Force. There's a huge sample space for exotic technologies to be developed from that, considering the Sith magitek on display everywhere. It would also keep the Jedi away from politics - involvement in the government led to the downfall of the Old Order, remember? People who disagree would provide a nice source of fun fun fun conflict.

Is an external invader really that hackneyed an idea? Something from the Unknown regions, out-of-control self-replicating robots, beserker probes, assimilating slimes (okay, that idea is overplayed), supernovae (and evacuations therefrom), gamma-ray bursts, kilonovae...

Something I think Star Wars (and all sci-fi, really) could use is better astronomy. Bespin and Mustafar already demonstrate better-than-average creativity, but I mean, an adventure in an underwater city on a Europa-analog or an Enceladus-analog would be really fun. Who wants to actully visit the Maw? I mean - black holes everywhere, weird time dilatory effects, a few pulsars and carbon planets...

But I tend to agree that VII VIII XI should have focused on the post-Imperial conflict first and foremost.