Star Wars rumors: Peelee (2 e's) to buy Star Wars

[Mechalich]

TLJ is literally about the remnants of the NR fleet, now on the ropes due to the fallout of the first flim, being hunted by the FO fleet.

That is not correct. The fleet in TLJ is the Resistance Fleet, the forces of the private army loyal to Leia. No New Republic unit appears at any point during the ST at all except for the handful of frames in TFA right at Starkiller Base blows up Hosnian Prime. The New Republic takes literally no action whatsoever at any point during the ST - they just get blown up and passively disintegrate.

It's only at this point that it's clear that the balance of power has shifted to the FO (which is not at all analgous to ESB in the OT, where no shift in power occurs at all). And in RoS, we basically have the FO in a final bid to use a fleet capable of actually gaining the power the Empire once have, being thwarted by a rising up of pretty much all of the different systems in the galaxy to stop them.

The balance of power shifts, entirely offscreen, in the roughly five minutes between the conclusion of TFA and the start of TLJ. The situation goes from the First Order getting their shiny weapon blown up and being forced to retreat to 'the First Order reigns.' How is never answered by anything in the films (secondary references claim that the New Republic suffered effectively immediate and total collapse following the destruction of Hosnian Prime, which is...there are no words). TLJ simply presents First Order control of the galaxy as a fait accompli. And, TRoS reinforces this. Specifically, when the crew goes to find Zorii Bliss, she mentions that she's trying to smuggle herself past First Order checkpoints into the Colonies. The Colonies being the region of the Galaxy immediately adjacent to the Core Worlds, this makes it clear that the First Order has the power to control civilian travel across the galaxy.

Additionally, the destruction of the Final Order fleet at the Battle of Exogol doesn't bring about the downfall of the First Order, though it does appear to eliminate their senior leadership. Instead, the First Order is defeated by apparently spontaneous uprisings across the galaxy with neither explanation or justification for how or why that could possibly happen.

[ecarden]

And yes, the heroes were presented as the underdogs, but isn't that always the case?

No? I mean, even though a lot of fiction occasionally tries to cast it as such, giant piles of fiction is written from the perspective of the more powerful party. To give a really easy example, basically all cop fiction.

Even when someone's "side" is technically in power, the actual heroes while out on a mission doing whatever, are still pretty much always going to be presented in the underdog position. Otherwise, it's not much of a conflict. Unless you consider "Bad guy located; call in an airstrike on his base; Ok. Threat eliminated" to be an exciting story.

To stick with my cop show analogy, the cops burst in and arrest the bad guy is a very standard resolution, because the tension is either:

1) Figuring out who to arrest
2) Figuring out how to prove it
3) Figuring out where they are

Now, a mainline Star Wars movie was pretty unlikely to be a police procedural (even if I would find a police procedural teaming up a Jedi with a Coruscant Security Force investigator during the High Republic to be a lot of fun), but an ST which attempted to grapple with the question of proper use of power, how to use it, when to use it, what the consequences of those actions (and inactions) were might not be great, who knows, but it would have been knew (and maybe even a bit more relevant to its audience than the question of what do if you're the underdog).

More broadly, being the more powerful party doesn't mean you're all powerful. If you'd asked me to predict an ST plot, it would have been:

1) If you absolutely have to go bigger than the OT, extra-galactic military threat
2) Political fragmentation (not Seperatists part two, because the NR lets them go, but someone is trying to cast the New Republic as ineffective, investigate and protect NR worlds while doing so).
3) There isn't a New Republic, there are New Republics and the New Jedi Order tries to keep the peace, keep them working together while some third party tries to sabotage such agreements.

[Flashy]

That is not correct. The fleet in TLJ is the Resistance Fleet, the forces of the private army loyal to Leia. No New Republic unit appears at any point during the ST at all except for the handful of frames in TFA right at Starkiller Base blows up Hosnian Prime. The New Republic takes literally no action whatsoever at any point during the ST - they just get blown up and passively disintegrate.

Weirdly, even though Poe openly describes himself as a New Republic fleet officer in the first 20 minutes of TLJ, this seems to be true (though wildly confusing). According to the wiki the surviving Senators just disbanded the fleet and returned the remaining assets to their original systems after the destruction of the Hosnian system, presumably from a desire to preserve what little remained of the New Republic's special effects budget.

[Mechalich]

More broadly, being the more powerful party doesn't mean you're all powerful. If you'd asked me to predict an ST plot, it would have been:

1) If you absolutely have to go bigger than the OT, extra-galactic military threat
2) Political fragmentation (not Seperatists part two, because the NR lets them go, but someone is trying to cast the New Republic as ineffective, investigate and protect NR worlds while doing so).
3) There isn't a New Republic, there are New Republics and the New Jedi Order tries to keep the peace, keep them working together while some third party tries to sabotage such agreements.

The big problem is that they put 'Episode VII' in front of the title card for TFA. The ST is supposed to be the continuation of the Skywalker Saga, not a new story set in the Star Wars universe ~30 years later. That was a writing error of almost incalculable proportions. Return of the Jedi is the end of the Skywalker Saga, and it's so clearly the end it might as well have a bow tied to it. Attempting to produce a continuation meant trying to deform the OT into merely 'Act II' of a three-act nine-movie structure.

To make this work, the ST needed to somehow assert that defeating Palpatine in Return of the Jedi didn't end the real threat, bring peace to the galaxy, or conclude the story of Anakin/Luke. The options along those lines were very, very limited. The one chosen in The Rise of Skywalker - that Palpatine wasn't really dead - is among them, but it's a really bad option. The fan theory option that Snoke is Darth Plagueis and everything Palpatine did was simply the prelude designed to weaken the galaxy in order to usher in his reign as an immortal dark deity is extremely cheesy but still vastly superior.

Of course, even if the ST writers had managed to put together a basic story structure that worked for the ST as act III - which they very much didn't - there wouldn't have been a huge hurdle of execution. Snoke as Plagueis means he has to come off as more intimidating than Palpatine and if Rey is ultimately the champion of the light side she has to come off as cooler than both Anakin and Luke. Those are some tall orders, and with all due respect to both Andy Serkis and the ILM vfx team behind Snoke and to Daisy Ridley, nope, not even close. Ridley's performance in TLJ and TRoS is simply not very good, also she looks like her hair is pinching her face in every shot (seriously, Ridley looks so, so much more comfortable with her hair down).

Weirdly, even though Poe openly describes himself as a New Republic fleet officer in the first 20 minutes of TLJ, this seems to be true (though wildly confusing). According to the wiki the surviving Senators just disbanded the fleet and returned the remaining assets to their original systems after the destruction of the Hosnian system, presumably from a desire to preserve what little remained of the New Republic's special effects budget.

Poe was a New Republic officer, and it's possible that in joining the Resistance his superiors simply labeled him, and most of those who went to join the Resistance, as AWOL and then buried the paperwork somewhere. That would allow the New Republic to disavow the Resistance if they failed, but to celebrate them if they succeeded. So, Poe might technically still be an NR officer in TLJ, but the Resistance is clearly operating without sanction.

[Flashy]

Poe was a New Republic officer, and it's possible that in joining the Resistance his superiors simply labeled him, and most of those who went to join the Resistance, as AWOL and then buried the paperwork somewhere. That would allow the New Republic to disavow the Resistance if they failed, but to celebrate them if they succeeded. So, Poe might technically still be an NR officer in TLJ, but the Resistance is clearly operating without sanction.

Oh absolutely! It's just framed in a confusing way in the movie and I really appreciate you pointing this out, because I had absolutely walked away with the idea that that was supposed to be a New Republic cruiser the whole time.

[runeghost]

Poe was a New Republic officer, and it's possible that in joining the Resistance his superiors simply labeled him, and most of those who went to join the Resistance, as AWOL and then buried the paperwork somewhere. That would allow the New Republic to disavow the Resistance if they failed, but to celebrate them if they succeeded. So, Poe might technically still be an NR officer in TLJ, but the Resistance is clearly operating without sanction.

This is superb headcanon, and I love it, but I suspect the "behind the scenes" answer is that Rian Johnson had forgotten that there was a difference between the Resistance and the New Republic, if he ever knew in the first place.

[Trafalgar]

This is superb headcanon, and I love it, but I suspect the "behind the scenes" answer is that Rian Johnson had forgotten that there was a difference between the Resistance and the New Republic, if he ever knew in the first place.

I think its not so much he didn't know as he didn't care.

[Fyraltari]

People complai about Lucas taking Ben's "desert hermit" outfit and making it the official Jedi look in the prequels.

But doesn't Anakin's ghost wearing it even in the original version of ROTJ mean this was already meant to be generic Jedi robes?

[Precure]

Yeah, it's a mix of medieval knight orders' and samurai costumes, and even Yoda is wearing something similar. It's supposed to be what jedi wear.

[Wintermoot]

People complai about Lucas taking Ben's "desert hermit" outfit and making it the official Jedi look in the prequels.

But doesn't Anakin's ghost wearing it even in the original version of ROTJ mean this was already meant to be generic Jedi robes?

I mean, that was still Lucas' choice, yes? The meat of the complaint isn't that "it was done in the prequels" but that Lucus did it at all.

There is another option there, anyway. Which is that Anakin was a native of Tatooine (as exhibited by his brother and his brother's family living there on Skywalker Hacienda and Cleigg Lars memorial Moisture-emporum and blue-milk dairy) So it wouldn't be unusual for his ghost form to choose typical Tatooine wardrobe.

Fun story. I was six when star wars came out. In the movie, when Ben tells Luke about him and Luke's father being in the Jedi knights together, by the end of the movie when Luke is joining the other pilots to attack the death star, my six year old brain absorbed that as the pilots all being jedi knights. So to me, the earliest garb for the jedi knight order was orange flightsuits.

Imagine how much fun THAT would've been in the prequels.

[Metastachydium]

to me, the earliest garb for the jedi knight order was orange flightsuits

As members of an illegal organisation, they should have all been wearing orange jumpsuits, I tell you!

[Fyraltari]

As members of an illegal organisation, they should have all been wearing orange jumpsuits, I tell you!

You say that like the white and orange uniforms of the inmates in Andor isn't a nod towards the future Alliance Starfighter Corps.

[Infernally Clay]

As members of an illegal organisation, they should have all been wearing orange jumpsuits, I tell you!

Okay Anakin. Don't get any sand in your eye.

[Sapphire Guard]

Jedi don't have a dress code. You can dress like Ahsoka if you want.

[Wintermoot]

Jedi don't have a dress code. You can dress like Ahsoka if you want.

Good point. Perhaps the brown robes aren't actually a Jedi Master standard outfit. Perhaps, one particular Jedi dressed like that (Yoda? someone from Tatooine?) and he was so popular, all the other Jedi started dressing the same way. You know, like how clothing trends propagate through high schools.

Tatooinian robes are the denim jackets of a 1980s Jedi High. Plus they are so comfy and roomy in the crotch for those Jedi back flips and kick-stands.

[Metastachydium]

Tatooinian robes are the denim jackets of a 1980s Jedi High.

Heh.

Plus they are so comfy and roomy in the crotch for those Jedi back flips and kick-stands.

Don't know about that one, though. What I do know is that I'd wear something other than robes for backflipping.

[gbaji]

That is not correct. The fleet in TLJ is the Resistance Fleet, the forces of the private army loyal to Leia. No New Republic unit appears at any point during the ST at all except for the handful of frames in TFA right at Starkiller Base blows up Hosnian Prime. The New Republic takes literally no action whatsoever at any point during the ST - they just get blown up and passively disintegrate.

Ok. Is that ever actually clarified in the film itself? I certainly could have missed it, but if the only way to make this disctinction is reading a wiki site somewhere and not in the actual film itself, then that's not a very meaningful distinction.

And, assuming it's true, and the FO was just fighting against Leia's personal Resistance Fleet and not against the actual New Republic Fleet (such as it was), then this actually reinforces my point. The FO was still trying to finish off some upstart local system forces out on the fringes of the Republic and (aside from blowing up their capital planet) hadn't even started on the actual New Republic yet (again, wherever these things are, apparently off screen somewhere).

And if you're saying that the actual New Republic fleet was destroyed and disbanded and all that was left was this small set of ships cobbled together from what was left, then that still counts as the "remnants of the New Republic fleet". So there is either no NR fleet left, and this is the remnants, or there is, and this is a separate Resistance Fleet. Either way, at this point in the series, the FO has not actually taken control of the galaxy yet. They are threatening to do so.

That is not remotely similar to the conditions in any of the films in the OT. In all three films the Empire was 100% in control of the entire galaxy (well, the parts that were ever part of the Old Republic in the first place anyway). The FO is still being presented as powerful bad guys fighting to gain control of the galaxy at this point. Doing a really good job of it, mostly because the NR more or less just falls apart. But the point is that they have to actually defeat Leia's fleet to get that control. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been bothering.

The balance of power shifts, entirely offscreen, in the roughly five minutes between the conclusion of TFA and the start of TLJ. The situation goes from the First Order getting their shiny weapon blown up and being forced to retreat to 'the First Order reigns.' How is never answered by anything in the films (secondary references claim that the New Republic suffered effectively immediate and total collapse following the destruction of Hosnian Prime, which is...there are no words). TLJ simply presents First Order control of the galaxy as a fait accompli. And, TRoS reinforces this. Specifically, when the crew goes to find Zorii Bliss, she mentions that she's trying to smuggle herself past First Order checkpoints into the Colonies. The Colonies being the region of the Galaxy immediately adjacent to the Core Worlds, this makes it clear that the First Order has the power to control civilian travel across the galaxy.

Again. I didn't get that all while while watching the films. I got that the FO had now managed to defeat major fleet elements against them, and no one was actively facing them in large scale battles any more, but that they were still far far away from actually securing military and political control over even a small portion of the systems in the galaxy. One does not automatically lead to the other. Sure, wherever a FO fleet showed up, they could exercise power, but they had barely even started with doing things like replacing planetary leaders with their own people yet.

This was, presumably, the entire point of finding and using the Exegol Fleet. That would give them the actual power to force all the worlds in the galaxy to capitulate. Without it, they could run roughshod on individual systems one at a time, but just didn't have the size and infrastructure to control more than a small portion of the whole galaxy. Unlike Palpatine, who sprang to power within an existing structure, the FO was faced with a galaxy full of individual systems, each with their own governments and (small) fleets. They would have to literally fly over and conquer each one individually.

They were still, even up to the end point of RoS not remotely close to the level of power the Empire had.

Additionally, the destruction of the Final Order fleet at the Battle of Exogol doesn't bring about the downfall of the First Order, though it does appear to eliminate their senior leadership. Instead, the First Order is defeated by apparently spontaneous uprisings across the galaxy with neither explanation or justification for how or why that could possibly happen.

It does two things. It destroys their ability to exert actual military and political control over a large portion of the galaxy. It also show just how large the galaxy is, and just how many systems there are, and that if you can actually mobilize all of them for something, even a largish set of ships like the FO had (large enough to curb stomp any individual system they went to), was not even close to a match.

That was the point of the (horribly executed) ending of RoS. That they *finally* got a large percentage of all of the systems in the galaxy to act together. Something which presumably the New Republic, in 30 years, had failed to come remotely close to doing. It acts as a kind of "second reset/victory" point. In some ways, it's actually a stronger one than at the end of RotJ, since that just killed off Palpatine, but left the bulk of the Empire still intact (but leaderless, so could be picked apart). Now, all you've got is the pre-existing FO fleet (absent a few ships and their leaders), but with an entire angry galaxy coming after them. What happens next could go in any direction, but the implication (to me anyway) is that this is the final straw that maybe gets all of these systems to start working together, at the very least to finish off the FO for good, and maybe even to build something new in terms of galactic governing. Might be a New New Republic. Might be something else. Who knows?

Again though. The FO thorugh the ST was never capable of actually exerting military power in more than a few places at once. It's just that no individual system had enough ships to stand up to them when they did, and the last fleet even willing to try was the one wiped out in TLJ. That made them very powerful warlords, but did not make them remotely close to a galactic Empire.

Oh absolutely! It's just framed in a confusing way in the movie and I really appreciate you pointing this out, because I had absolutely walked away with the idea that that was supposed to be a New Republic cruiser the whole time.

Yup. Me to. But as I pointed out above, it's a distinction that isn't really relevant. Doesn't matter what we label it. That fleet and those ships were the last "mobile" fleet standing against the FO. Everyone else was basically just retreating to their own systems and taking care of just their own business. So with no one mobilizing a large fleet of ships to actually go wherever the FO fleet was and face them, it meant the FO could just show up and attack where they wished. To me, that was the whole point of the (ridiculously drawn out) sequence in TLA.

[Precure]

Why do New Republic military personel is working for some senator's private army instead of Republic? Are they mercenaries?

[Grim Portent]

Why do New Republic military personel is working for some senator's private army instead of Republic? Are they mercenaries?

In a competently presented piece of media they would have been former military personnel who resigned their posts to join the Resistance, comparable to real world rebel military organisations who fought against various regimes that their home nations weren't at war with for ideological reasons.

[Flashy]

In a competently presented piece of media they would have been former military personnel who resigned their posts to join the Resistance, comparable to real world rebel military organisations who fought against various regimes that their home nations weren't at war with for ideological reasons.

Yeah, there's probably a pretty interesting movie that someone could make about a New Republic Flying Tigers analog fighting the resurgent Imperial forces on the wild frontier (like if a squadron had gone rogue or something, though who knows what you'd call that). It's just definitely not any of the movies they actually made.

[warty goblin]

Why do New Republic military personel is working for some senator's private army instead of Republic? Are they mercenaries?

It's not that weird for a military to imbed its people to an organization it supports in various semi-official capacities so as to fight people it isn't actually at war with and officially doesn't want to be. During WWI for instance, large portions of the Austreo-Hungarian submarine force was in fact German boats with German crews because Italy went to war with Austria-Hungary in May 1915, but didn't declare war on Germany until over a year later in August 1916.

[Errorname]

In a competently presented piece of media they would have been former military personnel who resigned their posts to join the Resistance, comparable to real world rebel military organisations who fought against various regimes that their home nations weren't at war with for ideological reasons.

A competently presented piece of media would probably have had an unrecognizable core conflict.

[Keltest]

My vague recall is that the resistance forces are largely New Republic personnel who looked at the First Order, saw they were sus, and went officially AWOL to join the fight under Leia, who had her political allies privately ok the fight while formally condemning them as renegade warmongers breaking the demilitarization of the NR.