Who should have been the main antagonist of the Sequel Trilogy

[Darth Yan]

The Sequel Trilogy was all over the place in many ways, especially in the Villain Department.We had Snoke, then Kylo and finally Palpatine. Now imagine if the sequels had been better planned; who should have been the overarching Big Bad?

1.) Son of Mortis: This guy has the power to be a threat, is relatively sympathetic in that he truly does love his family, and could tie in with the "let the past die" mentality (one rewrite had his plan be to literally open the gates of hell and unleash chaos on the galaxy so that he can rebuilt it into something better when the ashes clear.) If you wanted to reimagine Rey and Kylo as siblings (and eliminate the romance between the two obviously) he can also tie in with the "broken family" theme while also expanding on his motivations (rebuilding what he lost in his own twisted way.)

2.) A'Sharad Hett: Ties in with Anakin Skywalker, and can show that even after Vader's death his actions left scars. He also has a reason for corrupting Kylo (revenge on Anakin) and can even use his own experiences with Anakin to help sell the manipulation (i.e. he can say that he knew Anakin and that Kylo is NOT making Anakin's mistakes.)

3.) Darth Maul: George Lucas's sequel outline had Maul as the bad guy, and while it might seem corny TCW shows that Maul CAN be cunning and devious as a mastermind. It also ties in with the "evil from the past" theme.

4.) Palpatine: While the way it was done is kind of an ass pull I think you can make a case for Palpatine being the big bad; he was the big bad for the other two trilogies and he really is an iconic villain. It can also tie in the "let the past die" in that for all his power he's a ghost who's time has passed and can't accept it. At least one rewrite I saw was able to make it work by stating that it took 40 years prep work and a LOT of death in order to generate the energy needed to breach the afterlife and extract his soul.

5.) Kylo Ren: TLJ was positioning Kylo as the big bad before Palpatine swooped in, and it would be interesting if Kylo is unable to be redeemed but instead slips further into evil until he's ultimately put down.

6.) Lumiya: For all that Legacy of the Force rightly gets shat on, Lumiya herself had potential as a shadowy manipulator corrupting Luke's nephew as a spiteful "fuck you".

7.) Other: Tor Valum from Colin Trevarrow? Snoke? Heck maybe the Yuuzhan Vong or a similar threat. Maybe a case could be made for these guys

[Eternal_Freedom]

In all honesty I'd have preferred it if the Big Bad, whoever it was, wasn't in some way connected to Anakin Skywalker and wasn't a Force user. Let them be some otherwise ordinary, but capable, villain. It is after all a big galaxy, and Jedi/Sith aren't the totality of Force users, and overall they're a tiny proportion of the population.

Thrawn, maybe. Someone who has actual motivations and nuance beyond "for teh evulz" like Palpatine seemed to be.

[Gandalf]

In all honesty I'd have preferred it if the Big Bad, whoever it was, wasn't in some way connected to Anakin Skywalker and wasn't a Force user. Let them be some otherwise ordinary, but capable, villain. It is after all a big galaxy, and Jedi/Sith aren't the totality of Force users, and overall they're a tiny proportion of the population.

Thrawn, maybe. Someone who has actual motivations and nuance beyond "for teh evulz" like Palpatine seemed to be.

That seems a pretty cool idea. A non-force user who didn't care for the weird theocratic structures running the galaxy, seeking to reclaim it for the muggles could have been amazing if done right. It could even be a decent way of using Thrawn if you keep him the proper space Nazi villain.

[Darth Yan]

In all honesty I'd have preferred it if the Big Bad, whoever it was, wasn't in some way connected to Anakin Skywalker and wasn't a Force user. Let them be some otherwise ordinary, but capable, villain. It is after all a big galaxy, and Jedi/Sith aren't the totality of Force users, and overall they're a tiny proportion of the population.

Thrawn, maybe. Someone who has actual motivations and nuance beyond "for teh evulz" like Palpatine seemed to be.

That seems a pretty cool idea. A non-force user who didn't care for the weird theocratic structures running the galaxy, seeking to reclaim it for the muggles could have been amazing if done right. It could even be a decent way of using Thrawn if you keep him the proper space Nazi villain.

The force users don't really run things (well the Sith do but that's shown as a bad thing.) The Jedi serve.

I did like how the First Order were reactionaries who don't want to give up their power and accept change. That was a fine idea on paper.

[Gandalf]

The force users don't really run things (well the Sith do but that's shown as a bad thing.) The Jedi serve.

We can see that because we as the audience see the inner workings of the Jedi temple, in a sympathetic way. But what of the galaxy at large? The Jedi may not look good if your sole interaction with them is one turning up and mind tricking you into giving him a valuable space ship part for weird currency worth pennies.

That was something I loved in TLJ, where Luke goes on about how the legacy of the Jedi is one of failure. They didn't see Palpatine coming, and then one of their own joined him. The institution of the Jedi were a failure, so a new trilogy would be a cool place to explore trying to build a successor in the face where the legend of the Jedi is sunk.

[Darth Yan]

Except that itself was an exaggeration. The Jedi were around for thousands of years and did a lot of good in that time. The institution was flawed because it got attached to the status quo but their purpose and mandate were good.

TLJ fell flat for me because while I understand what Johnson wanted to do the way it was done felt sloppy (I can buy Luke being angry and having doubts; however I do NOT buy him drawing a lightsaber on his nephew just because he had a vision and sensed Snoke's influence.)

[Lord Revan]

Honestly the idea of the First Order as it was shown in the first movie wasn't bad per se, a remnant imperial faction lead by a non-Sith force user, the issue with it was that it was depicted too similar to the Galactic Empire which lead to inconsistent world building.

What I would have done is have Snoke/Ren not be puppets for Palpatine but rather have Snoke be former minion of Palpatine who was able to take charge of the First Order. Also have it be so that the First Order was mostly a local threat trying to annex Republic Worlds in secret and the Resistance was also a local (you can still have Leia involved though) group who were trying to prove the threat of the First Order to the Republic and the First Order getting exposed being a real threat to them since the Republic was that much more powerful as simply didn't get involved because they thought it was a minor local issue.

[Knife]

I think it would have been nice to have another villain that doesn't go back into the past. Not an Imperial, not a Force user. Have the Republic an actual competent government but not able to heal all the wounds from the past. Give them a villain they are not used to. Perhaps a Marco Inaros character or 'The Mule' from Asimov. We don't necessarily need to see his/her rise, just that they had a populist movement, perhaps born from revolutions in various systems from both Imperial control and then into Republic control. Almost a Jihad like movement, not about forming a Nation, but about 'freeing' people from the Yoke.

I mean, it makes sense since the Galaxy has been at war on and off for 40 years. Plenty of people had their lives ruined from the Clone Wars through the Empire and into the Civil War. How many lost their dad or grandfather to clones/jedi/droids/imperials/rebels. I feel like there would be enough angst there to have a movement of, probably for wrong reasons, angry people out there to go apeshit hoard and over run star systems to take 'what is owed them' from the 'powers that be'.

The old heroes have no experience in this. Han Solo can't exactly swoop in and blaster fuck a hoard of peeps over running Nal Hutta to free slaves, since the Hutts still have slaves 30 years after the formation of the New Republic. Luke can't exactly Force Choke or Lightsaber his way into groups of people doing exactly what he did in the Civil War, which in their mind, is to fight an oppressive government. Doesn't have to be mass murder and blowing up planets, just people living on worlds where their houses got blown up in war and the rich people's houses where rebuilt and poor lived on the street.

It echoes current events, gives solid themes, makes 'bad guys' somewhat relatable, makes old good guys unable to deal with it requiring new heroes. Doesn't redo Imperial/Rebel motif, doesn't redo Jedi/Sith motif.

[Darth Yan]

I don't mind the villain being from the past. The point of the first order is that they're reactionaries who can't accept that their time is over and that what they believed was never good at all. Those guys are always going to fight tooth and nail to resist change and having a villain from the past fits nicely; their fall would be the living embodiment of "your time is over, a new future is needed".

The rewrite I read that had the Son has the big bad plays the "first order are reactionaries who want the bad old days" and adds "and this makes them pawns to a lunatic god who wants to burn everything to the ground.

[Crazedwraith]

Basically I think any main antagonist could have worked had they pre-planned the trilogy from the start. Snoke, Ren, even Palpatine. Not pre-planning it is what killed it. Just going off the first two as they were. Ren should have been the big bad but the lack of pre-planning left him nowhere to go. So he's Supreme Leader... what does he want to do then?

And tangentially, if they do have to go with the redemption arc. Don't kill him off to do it. It's been done, it just cements him as a pale echo of Darth Vader. Go for a surrender and be voluntarily incarcerated for his crimes a form of redemption seen far less frequently. Have the final shot of him be sitting in a magneto style glass prison, perfectly contented and mediating in proper Jedi fashion.

[Adam Reynolds]

I think the main antagonist should have effectively have been two groups of rival heroes. It would essentially be a conflict between Jedi and Grey Jedi, showing why the ideology of the Grey Jedi doesn't actually work any better than that of the Jedi proper. If you need someone to fall to the Dark Side, a grey Jedi could easily become a sort of grey Sith as they attempt to find the alternative from the other direction.

Also, I think the First Order could have been an interesting antagonist for the first movie, but only to reestablish how things are as a traditional SW movie before the Jedi splinter properly going into the sequel. The final big action setpiece of the movie is mostly about dunking on them, though there would also need to be enough of a an anti-Jedi threat to justify Han dying to protect one of his kids(I'm assuming this was sort of dictated by Harrison Ford wanting to not be in the next one). Having the New Republic military actually be competent and use equally cool toys would be a nice twist.

With the Jedi mostly distracting themselves, this could have also tied into an antagonist like Thrawn who is trying to use this existing conflict to drum up support against the Jedi. Though I agree that a Macro Inaros type would be more interesting as a populist figure. Ideally just make the populist leader as smart as Thrawn, as what made him interesting was the way he was a strategist more than it was the specific character.

[Crossroads Inc.]

So two months isn't THAT far down these days right?
Anyways...

Yeah, The sequels... I'd given a lot of thought about the whole :what could you have done differently" and at the end of the day, I feel what it comes down to is what sort of STORY you want to tell. IE, what is the over all 'message' you want the movies to send. Something which, clearly, the Disney produced ones delivered in a hot muddy mess.

To start, I want to quote the last comment as, ironically, it is close to exactly what I have in mind, but with the opposite outcome.

I think the main antagonist should have effectively have been two groups of rival heroes. It would essentially be a conflict between Jedi and Grey Jedi, showing why the ideology of the Grey Jedi doesn't actually work any better than that of the Jedi proper. If you need someone to fall to the Dark Side, a grey Jedi could easily become a sort of grey Sith as they attempt to find the alternative from the other direction.

So. here is my thing.
The New series as we got it, started with a message of:
WE NEED JEDI! ONLY THEY CAN SAVE US!
Which, was a bit hamfisted and didn't really pan out in terms of what the actual threat to the Galaxy really was. So, I basically thought of starting with the opposite.

The movie should start with a setting similar, New Republic in a Cold War setting with Imperial Remnant, both sides fighting Proxy battles through the Resistance and the First Order. Rey starts in a similar way, orphaned and growing up idolizing the Jedi, reading books and dreaming of their grand adventure. She even has a Light Saber, having found one at a junk shop years ago and trains with it every day.The galaxy however has moved on, and the New Jedi are regarded as relics of a bygone era:
The basic 'message' starts with:
"THIS IS THE GALAXY ITS COMPLICATED AND FULL OF PROBLEMS THAT CANNOT BE SOLVED BY JEDI"

Ray gets caught up with some Resistance fighters and wants to join, specifically saying she wants to join the new Jedi and train. At every turn however she is told to forget it, give up, no one needs Jedi "you can't solve the problems of the Galaxy with a laser sword." Meanwhile it comes out that 'someone' in the first order seems interested in heating up the 'Cold War' pushing the Imperial ares into full scale fighting. The resistance get wind that the First Order are going to launch an attack on the NR Capital using a half built / abandoned '3rd Death Star'. A much smaller and still dangerous version, it was supposed to be dismantled, but NR paperwork never got around to it.
The resistance go in and fight the First order in the station trying to gain control. At last the "bad guy" is reveled and surprise, he is a Sith wannabe, brandishing red lightsaber, looking like Darth Vader, and ranting about restoring the Sith to their proper place in the Galaxy!
A pitch battle rages and Rey finds herself facing the Would-Be-Sith with her trust laser Sword. Where everyone else has failed, Rey is able to fend him off, narrowing stopping him from reactivating the station and taking it to Courscont.
Thus the first movie ends with the message
"THERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU DO NEED JEDI FOR"

That would basically cover how the first movie should go. I am still working out #2 and #3

:3

[Solauren]

Personally, I'd have preferred that Disney went with the old EU, starting with the 'Thrawn Trilogy'.

Yeah, they'd have to have recast just about everyone, but they'd have had a lot to work with, and years of fanfeedback to polish stuff with.
Heck, they could have cast BIllie Lourde as the new Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley as Mara Jade, and Adam Driver as Han, Sebastian Stan as Luke, and just ran with it.

[Mr Bean]

Another random suggestion Gilad Pellaeon. Grand Admiral of the Imperial Remanent who now rules a few thousand core systems. Give a nice map showing the New Republic rules half the Galaxy the Empire controls one a fifth all in the core worlds with the rest being independent. We can still re-use the First Order and the New Resistance. Each represents elements that are mad about the peace say GA Pellaeon signed it with the New Republic council and how fraught it's been as both sides try to maintain their power.

Let's start the movie on the 1 year anniversary of the peace treaty being signed for easy audience attention.

On the Republic side they blame the Council for signing the peace and ending the war when they did, throw in some mention of combats past to give non-EU readers and idea how much shit has happened in the last fifteen years. Still the EU ideas of 1000+ races causing issues in the New Republic of ancient wars being brought front and center after being repressed for the past few decades. Worlds that just fallen apart because they were operated by the Empire for it's police and defense forces which the NR is not maintaining. Last throw in a demobilization, millions of NR fighters now off the payroll as the war is over.

On the Empire side plenty of citizens are mad about the reduction in power, planetary governors thinking about going independent (Which the NR allows and the Empire does not) and a few warlords breaking away. And oh yes these psycho First Order crazies mostly made up of rear area forces and those who never fought the NR along with dozens of legitimate war heroes they cluster around some real some exaggerated. Portray GA Pellaeon as a man who wants nothing more than to retire but is trying to clobble together something to replace himself and trying not to end up a dictator.

You set up the conflict now, the NR has a Resistance lead by Leia who actively opposed signing the peace treaty and is now getting covert support and ships from NR systems but nothing from the Council. On the Empire side the First Order wants to restart the war because they are convinced they have what they need to win and the NR cut back to far to fast.

Enter Rey on a dusty planet still a scavenger of the remains of one of the last great battles of the war. But I'd change the planet so it's not Tatooine light. Make it lightly volcanic like a planet should be if million ton ships dropped out of orbit and impacted intact. No active laval flows but deep cracks with light and heat contrasting with a cool atmosphere. Lots of baked clay and tall metal mountains of destroyed ships. Strange beautful formations of half metal ship salvage that cooled into reflective spheres.

Movie 1 plot :
1. Set up the galaxy
2. Where are they now? (Touch in with old series favorites minus Luke)
3. Introduce Rey
4. Introduce the First Order who in their small fleet have chased a NR courier ship here and forced it to ground. It's Han and Chewie who agreed to help us wife out with one little job and jumped into a First Order Destroyer (Fancy new ship types!) and the Falcon being the Falcon breaks.
5. Rey gets introduced as helping the two and shows she's competent
6. Introduce Finn as a hapless stormtrooper one of the squads sent to the surface to hunt for the Resistance Courier ship he bumbles into Rey and Han
7. Shenanigans
8. Now semi-captured by Han, Finn helps out in their scavenging they find what they need the Falcon is good to go but dun dun high overhead evil McBadman ship arrives and one of the secret weapons of the New Order arrives a Sith. This Sith is not Ben Solo
9. Han drops the news that Luke is missing that his academy fell apart after five years (Still over Ben) but the world does not know it as some Jedi did graduate but they are few in number and most went back to their home planet
10. Falcon flees into space New Order chases convinced he has some secret info not knowing is Han and Han wants to get out of here.
11. Thrilling space chase
12. Resistance reinforcments outnumber New Order who retreats convinced they have find secret main base
13. Space battle part 2 intro your fighter jocks, sith lands at base fighting way through give him two lightsabers who Rey can take one away later
14. Final battle Han see's sith who should be gone, Rey surprise uses force battle won day is save at the end Han admits he was carrying important message for Luke as Ben his son has been seen... in the New Order.

Now you've set up part 2 entering the empire fighting the New Order (No superweapons yet) and Ben can still kill Han but in movie 2.
Climate is

[Mr Bean]

Climate is extra text ignore.

Adding onto this in my mind the movies flow like this
Move 1:Intro new cast to old cast, set up threats and stakes only real threat is Falcon destroyed and Han dead and message never arrives
Move 2: Introduce Jedi/Sith as they stand now, infiltration mission to get to Ben only to discover he sits at the right hand of the leader of the New Order, death of Han or Luke and escape, discovery of galactic threat
Move 3: Confrontation of New Order Leader, freeing Ben from the dark side, galaxy almost comes to war again but pulls back.

Movie 1 features volcanic ruined ships planet and an agrarian world plus background well know planets in cut away or on come calls
Movie 2 features same Luke planet great choice but now we leave for I'm thinking urban water planet so we can get a swoop bike chase in there followed by big sith station in orbit plus some pit-stops
Movie 3 Planet Empire, something almost Hiveworld esk with dark polluted exteriors, hard brutality interiors but with splashes of beauty hidden away

Going to sleep ideas my mind is racing trying to fill in something that will never be because three different committees who hated each other came up with the actual movie.

[Vendetta]

I would have had a Thrawn shaped character who was not actually Thrawn. (A problem with Thrawn as an antagonist to the Republic is that he really doesn't have an ongoing reason to be loyal to the Empire.)

Establish the scenario that the New Republic has done some good but a lot of the forces that were unleashed by Palpatine in his rise to power were never actually put back in their boxes, so the Separatists and Hutts and so on are resisting integration into the Republic, the Imperial Remnant still fights back, there's still a lot of conflict. The antagonist is a brilliant Rebel general whose idealism turned to bitterness as peace never really returned and started becoming more and more tempted to use the methods of the Empire. Eventually rising as a strategic threat to the Republic and threatening to reestablish the Empire in the way Thrawn did with Ben Solo as his enforcer, but instead of magic informed knowledge he has insider knowledge of the Republic military. (Essentially a Napoleon figure, rising to prominence after a revolution overthrew the previous Emperor and installing himself via military coup)

Ben Solo would start out attached to his command as a Jedi completing his training with life experience, and his path through and back out of the Dark Side would be following him and being tainted by his methods and valuing order over life.

Rey would be an inhabitant of one of the planets this general brings his version of Republican order to, and Finn would be one of his troops who starts out fanatically loyal because of his history and legacy of victories for the Rebels but begins to question his methods.

The OT characters would not be materially involved, they would be off working at the heart of the Republic and would be available to counsel and support the new heroes, but this needs to be a new story for new people, not an excuse for fanboys like JJ Abrams to get their slobber on everything.

[Solauren]

In the Old EU - Thrawn was loyal to the Empire (under Sidious) as a means to an end - to protect his people. A choatic, disorderly galaxy was a threat to his people. (Retroactively - The Vong were a threat to his people.)

Thrawn was loyal to the Empire under himself, for much the same reason. He reimperializes the galaxy under his leadership (which while a bit more brutal in some ways, was probably more enlightened then Sidious), and he can use it to protect his people.


No idea about the New EU version of Thrawn, but I can imagine his motivations might be similar.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

The new version is fairly similar, though his inner self is a bit more developed.

Thrawn seems to think of himself as a man alone; a man with a unique perspective, whose lot in life is to be feared and resented by those who cannot share in it. His attitude towards life in general is pragmatic, with more than a little cynicism. He doesn't so much believe in might-makes-right, so much as right being irrelevant in the face of might. Those who have sufficient power may pursue their goals, while the the weak survive as best they can.

Though he understands that the Empire is corrupt and tyrannical, he regards all governments as being that way to some extent. To him, the Empire is the galaxy's least-worst option, because a ruthless and efficient system is needed to protect the galaxy from threats. He seems to want order and peace, for his people and for everyone else. While he's brilliant at warfare, he doesn't seem to actually enjoy violence; rather he accepts it as a practical reality. He regards the galaxy as a dangerous place, and that a society that cannot or will not defend itself will invariably be destroyed. He saw this himself as a young officer; seeing worlds burned and civilisations destroyed, conquered by brute force, or tricked into surrender by guile.

As a result, he believes his people are in serious danger, and will do anything to protect them. What sets him aside from being a General Ripper or a Sith is that he is willing and able to think his way around problems, and put them in their proper perspective. Contrast Ripper, who lashes out in rage and paranoia, while the Sith destroy because the Dark side has blown their bloodlust out of control. He is also different in that his vision extends beyond his own people. He comes to believe that his people must engage and work with others in order to survive; while destroying those who cannot be co-existed with, such as the Grysk.

I get the impression that Thrawn has a psychological need for order and stability. There is a fan theory that he's autistic; perhaps due to his lack of social graces.

[Solauren]

Either version of Thrawn then would have made a good villian for the Sequel trilogy then.

[Galvatron]

I still think anything less than Palpatine (or someone even more powerful and threatening) would have been anticlimactic as fuck. All the ideas for such a trilogy remind me of Tolkien's aborted sequel to LOTR and why he decided it wasn't worth doing.

[Vendetta]

I still think anything less than Palpatine (or someone even more powerful and threatening) would have been anticlimactic as fuck. All the ideas for such a trilogy remind me of Tolkien's aborted sequel to LOTR and why he decided it wasn't worth doing.

Tolkien decided he wasn't going to do a sequel to Lord of the Rings because it would establish the idea that the ground state of the world is darkness and the victories of good are temporary, and that thought was far too depressing.

It wasn't because he thought he couldn't come up with a biggerer and badderer baddie than Sauron.

"Do the same but make it bigger" is not how good stories happen.

[Darth Yan]

I wouldn't mind if evil made a last grasp at power and was defeated. Winning the peace is an interesting theme that's not often explored in fiction.

[Batman]

LOTR WAS that last grasp.

[Darth Yan]

In Star Wars. Had the sequels tried that I wouldn’t have minded