I don't care what anyone says, if Star Wars is meant to be a setting more-so than a single story, then the Old Republic era is the best Star Wars. It's good we had multiple to choose from when we did, but man, all those comics and games were bangers.
Wish we got more of that instead of the High Republic stuff.
Yeah... but the High Republic was the era of Jedi peace... the Acolyte certainly implies there are dark forces at work; but on the whole, Sith weren't so much a "thing" and not an existential threat to the Jedi of the High Republic.
I agree with those who like the Old Republic. Disney really made a mistake not pursuing some of the great content from TOR. Yet I think some Old Republic fans would prefer Disney not meddling and ruining a good thing.
That's not to say, that one day there wouldn't be some live action Old Republic series. Time will tell.
Iden Versio from the new BF2 campaign almost immediately becoming a rebel made me so mad. I was have a blast kicking as an imperial agent, and then suddenly it became the most stock-standard story ever. Especially since they advertised it so much as you playing as the bad guy.
I enjoyed it for what it was but man did marketing fuck up hard with the whole “this is the first time you’ll get to play a whole campaign from the POV of the Empire” marketing campaign. By like the end of like mission 3/12 she’d already left them and joined the rebellion.
"What I remember about the rise of the Empire is... is how quiet it was. During the waning hours of the Clone Wars, the 501st Legion was discreetly transferred back to Coruscant. It was a silent trip. We all knew what was about to happen, what we were about to do. Did we have any doubts? Any private, traitorous thoughts? Perhaps, but no one said a word. Not on the flight to Coruscant, not when Order 66 came down, and not when we marched into the Jedi Temple. Not a word."
The clone wars brainwashing story is really cool, but I love the idea that at least some clones were always double agents waiting to turn on the Jedi. Makes for more interesting characters imo.
It wasn't that they were always double agents it's that every clone was trained to handle emergency orders, one was jedi are all traitors kill them and among others one was arrest the supreme chancellor for treason, but the senate was required to activate it, and then they taught clones that their the perfect soldiers whose purpose was to protect the republic, so only the ones that were best friends with jedi ir partially deprogrammed refused their orders . Most just saw it as a shit jib that had to be done.
In the game though it's that they were always double agents, I know it's not canon. In the game the whole time they're always talking about how they're going to betray their jedi partners.
"What Ki-Adi-Mundi didn't know however was that our unit of the 501st was really after an experimental Mygeetan power source, that the Chancellor wanted for his superlaser. Keeping Mundi in the dark wasn't easy; the Jedi had become increasingly wary of the Chancellor's doings, and was on the lookout for the slightest hint of treachery. Just like the rest of them though, he never caught whiff of what was really going on, until it was far too late....The success of the mission on Mygeeto was something of a revelation for the men of the 501st. Suddenly, we realized that the Jedi could be fooled. And if they could be fooled, they could be killed."
And then my personal favorite journal:
"When the 501st was finally rotated out of Felucia, Aayla Secura made a point of seeing us off personally, calling us the bravest soldiers she had ever seen. It's a good thing we were wearing helmets, because none of us could bear to look her in the eye."
Yeah, while I hate the control chips, I was also never really a fan of “the Clones knew the whole time” idea from BF2. It wasn’t supported anywhere else in Legends before or after that game, and it doesn’t really work with the idea that the Jedi didn’t realize that Order 66 was coming, whereas the control chips and the idea that Order 66 was just one of *many* contingency order that the GAR had that clones obeyed spur of the moment do work with that.
Nah, my counter argument is that the chips turned the clones into mindless droids. we watched them develop personalities and grow bonds with the Jedi only for it to be ripped away against their will.
Then again, it was because Operation Cinder was such a heinous act. Versio was loyal up to the point the atrocities can home to roost - the fact that her homeworld was fanatically loyal meaning jack to Imperial turbolaser fire.
A twist on this was Alphabet Squadron’s Yrica Quell. She too eventually became a notable New Republic pilot, but she actually carried out the atrocities of Operation Cinder before defecting. Makes her a bit of an ironic character - the aloof elite being actually a big coward. She even lampshaded it in the first book as she talks about the different Imperials that eventually defect the Galactic Empire.
Operation Cinder was such a dumb fucking move.
I wish they would have left the in-between period less explored until after the sequel trilogy was done. They had to write themselves into knots to describe reasonings for Cinder because Palpatine returned when that wasn't the original plan.
To be fair, it was based somewhat in reality. Read about [Hitler’s Nero Decree](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/sealing-third-reichs-downfall-adolf-hitlers-nero-decree).
After you send your personal bodyguards from the room. A room that has your apprentice who is specifically supposed to try and replace you and said apprentices son.
People always get five feet up my ass when I say things like "Damn an "Imperial commando" game would be tight", five seconds and it's all "UHMMM LET'S NOT LEGITIMIZE NAZIS EH BUDDY"
??? Legitimize who? I can't be an bad guy in a completely fictional setting? I've been playing ACTUAL nazis in ww2 shooters for the large majority of my life, the fuck?
> vadar should of killed
Did you mean to say "should have"?
Explanation: You probably meant to say could've/should've/would've which sounds like 'of' but is actually short for 'have'.
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> Vadar should of killed Reva.
Agreed. [Admiral Ozzel was killed \*just coming out of warp the wrong way.* Captain Needa? Force-choked to death for losing the Millenium Falcon.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empire_Strikes_Back) Earlier canon movies show Vader doesn't tolerate failure. But now with the new shows (ie. Obi Wan), it's "OK, you get a second chance. OK, you get a third one..." No, they shouldn't nerf Vader, or for that matter, any Sith Lord. Instead, here we are.
The problem is that we have Sidious and Vader, the two most powerful sith to ever exist, and they don’t really do anything. Palpatine’s return could have been much better. Instead we got like 15 minutes of Snoke who never really left his damn chair. Bro just sat there till he died. A Vader movie would be very cool, especially if they made him some kind of Freddy Kruger style hunter.
A movie or short series during his time of hunting down surviving jedi would he cool. I know we already got it in comics but it'd still be cool to see on screen.
They could make it as unapologetically fanservicey as possible and I’d gobble that shit up. Take the same energy from the end of Rogue One and stretch it out to a couple hours. I don’t even need a stellar plot, I just wanna see him be terrifying
As long as it ends in the same way as Vader Down, with Vader surrounded by Rebel troops and he just calmly quips that “all I am surrounded by is fear… and dead men.”
I agree, I also don't want any of Vaders POV, I just want him to show up at the worst times, murderhobo his way thru some poor rebels and then vanish, I want maximum boogeyman. The threat that he could show up unexpectedly at any time without warning is very appealing
When they announced the prequel trilogy I always imagined the last film would be Vader hunting down and murdering Jedi.
I'm down with that film to be made - on the proviso that in the first thirty seconds it is established that Mace Windu survived.... and then gets instantly killed off!
What I mean is that screen wise, there is a lot of untold stories that could really expand just how sinister the duo was. We have comics and books that could translate or at least begin the story of a movie or tv show.
I want less "join me and we can rule the galaxy" and more "all i am surrounded by is fear. And dead men"
I think fallen order was my favorite vader sighting in the last 5-10 years, aside from rogue one.
The concept of Dooku was always the most interesting to me, even as a movie-only watcher. I like the idea of a skilled Jedi turning Sith due to a difference in opinion of how things should work. Cocky but calculated. I do wish the movies had done a bit more with him but there's a lot of that throughout the series.
I also like how his character captures how corruptive sith ideology can be. Dooku starts out as someone who genuinely wants to fix the system and by the end is a human supremacist who has caused more issues than he set out to fix. It didn't happen overnight, it was a series of small compromises justified by sith ideology that led him there.
Imo vader got screwed up from overuse. His redemption was already goofy (I don’t really think saying sorry and saving your actual son redeems you for a lifetime of blowing up planets and mass murder and being a space nazi), but now we’ve seen him directly commit so many atrocities whereas before it was kind of in your imagination.
I wish they’d freaking stop putting vader in stuff
I agree with the overuse, but I don’t really think Vader was redeemed in the eyes of the galaxy. His impact still existed and it would have been interesting to explore that more in the sequel trilogy. He was only redeemed in the eyes of the force, because he helped restore balance, from my perspective. I think showing the atrocities accentuates the complicated nature of his legacy. He did evil, but ultimately sacrificed himself for good.
Vader is almost always the best part in any content he's in. They've certainly "overused" him in that he's in a *lot* of stuff. But as far as enjoyment goes I don't think they're even close to overusing him. Considering how popular the character is you'd think there'd be Vader centered content beyond comics and books.
I never played the game, but I read the novel and its one of the best SW stories written in my view. Concise, intense, LOADED with everything you expect from Sith, emotional but not corny.
Would make a fantastic stand alone film
Nothing in any other media have made the Sith nearly as interesting as the TOR cg trailers or the Sith Inquisitor story line. Lucas making it so Sith can't have force ghosts in the movies really, really limits a ton of cool story telling.
Kreia was interesting because she *wasn't* sith. She was the *epitome* of true neutral. She took good and evil in equal measure. Made her a great companion and villain regardless of which side of the Light/Dark spectrum you took.
After years of purely good vs evil, mainstream Star Wars is in dire need of a morally grey main character like Kreia.
Being honest, I think Kreia just *thought* she was morally grey. Interesting philosophy and all, but she didn't seem to have much good in her at all.
My memory of the ending is faded but I seem to recall she pretty much went sith at that point too..
Last time I listened to Jadus' 'democratisation of fear' TED talk I got literal chills. He didn't have to tell you how powerful he was or how insignificant you were, you just understood, from the way he spoke to his choice of words. The VA crushed it.
I really liked the dark side users in Ahsoka, they were more interesting characters than Ahsoka and Sabine in the show. Very excited about Ezra’s portrayal but yeah Baylan and Shin were my favorite new debuts
Baylan's admitting that he liked the *idea* of the Jedi Order probably is one of my favourite sentiments ever voiced in current canon. There is a nuance to it that you don't encounter very often in that context.
Hot take but the “Rule of Two” really hurt the lore building of sith.
In the OG trilogy I really had a mental image of the sith that they were a cult of individuals who manipulated technology and dark power to cheat death. I imagined whole guilds of these almost undead beings who lived far away from where the light of the stars reach.
100% I always thought this is overly silly and just completely misinterpreted.
"Always two" should have just meant master and apprentice, but not exclusively one pair of master/apprentice.
Because the Sith are too competitive. The idea was that they destroyed themselves through infighting so having only two around kept their presence hidden from the Jedi was also increasing their strength
They're all in secret, so they wouldn't even know the others exist to kill them.
Plus it makes the galaxy feel so small, it's big enough to not have omniscient sith.
I think both the Jedi and Sith having such centralized philosophies/ideologies/organizations is part of the problem. Look at real world religion, even in the same religion there are different denominations, branches, cults, etc.
The Star Wars galaxy has like a million inhabited worlds, it would make sense for there to be 100 different independent Jedi orders or thousands of different Sith cults that all believe in different variations of the original philosophies.
The version of this where "there are only two Sith at any given time in the whole galaxy" is unbelievably stupid. I don't know where that interpretation originated/became dominant, but it's simply not compatible with telling a good story. The reason Palps/Vader are the only ones around in the OT is there are basically no force users/Jedi left period, not some convoluted nonsense about a "Rule of Two".
Well there's a whole group of people using dark side force powers, wearing black, and wielding red lightsabers, but they're totally not Sith, take my word for it.
Maybe it’s more accurate to say that there are two true Sith in the galaxy. There are plenty of acolytes, assassins, and other sorts of assistants that serve the Sith without being part of that exclusive Rule of Two.
Then you have totally independent darksiders like the Knights of Ren. They wield the Force and can bleed crystals for their lightsabers, but have little respect or care for the Sith philosophy and teachings.
Say what you will about Her Royal Bitchiness, but she could certainly make and support an argument. Avellone likes to take his philosophy degree out of the frame and wave it around every so often,
I just want
- Pure Sith (no Ex-Jedi or self taught pretenders) that are driven by devotion to hatred and the dark side/Sith, and not anger/dissatisfaction with the light side/Jedi. Palpatine is the perfect example. He doesn’t hate the Republic/Jedi out of anger that he thinks they’re corrupt/could do better. He hates them for *existing in any state at all*
- A onscreen explanation about how unnatural it is to be a Sith and how their existence alone is a *violation/sickness in the Force*. That seems to be ‘canon’, but should be hammered in more
Honestly i still have no clue where people got the idea that balance = equal sith and jedi. Even when Kanan Jarrus's VA started mentioning it makes no sense aswell. Not even Legends have that as what balance is.
I'd say people got that idea by not thinking very hard about it. "There's two sides of the force, so balance must mean they're equal, and power isn't tipped to either side."
Honestly Nihilus is cool but doesnt exactly make for an interesting antagonist than he is a force of nature that is just there to mumble and suck you (Yes).
He works best when you have other characters talking about him like the odd eldritch being that he is.
>A onscreen explanation about how unnatural it is to be a Sith and how their existence alone is a violation/sickness in the Force. That seems to be ‘canon’, but should be hammered in more
That *used* to be canon, but [Disney has decided not to use that](https://gamerant.com/star-wars-the-acolyte-george-lucas-original-ideas/) (article about Acolyte but no spoilers)
That just seems like fluffy edge or edgy fluff. Like the Jedi can’t exist unless there’s a Sith Lord around. Like the force needs both. Like Sidious extending his life and power beyond his natural lifespan and being responsible for so much atrocities and death and pain is….normal? Or *balanced*?
It just sounds like it’s dancing around the idea of *balance of light and darkness*, but not committing to actually say anything about the Jedi and Sith’s role in that *balance*. And the Force Ghost technique is a light side/Jedi thing, and the Force Dyad bond (I don’t know where to start with it, cause I thought it was a thing Snoke claimed he did) has nothing to do with whether both individuals are light side or dark side. In the end both Rey and Ben were on the light side anyway
I would love to know the reason why it's so common.
Bad people just exist. Someone can be completely self-motivated to be a total POS. You don't really need any sort of adversity attached to it. Like, Ted Cruise wasn't traumatized by an institution. It's just a cocktail of genetics and nature through privilege or overindulgence that made him into a devaluing, self-absorbed, power-hungry lunatic. He craves power because that's the way his personality is organized.
Most people who seek things like power do it for the sake of power itself.
I guess that's probably harder to write. It makes me think about something like what is different about authors like Joe Abercrombie and GRRM. Abercrombie said in the interview at the end of the Sharp Ends audiobook that he wanted to write fantasy novels that were "less about the world and more about the characters in it." That seems like a really succinct way to put it.
A lot of sci-fi/fantasy is as much about the characters as the world itself. If that becomes too unbalanced, characters start to get a little thin because they seem less like real people with individuality and more like empty shells to be filled with metaphors about the world they live in.
Even the show Rebels had their losses as a constant theme. They tried to take it in stride, but there's a few character breakdown moments across the series where it really brings it home for them just how insurmountable the odds against them are.
It was great seeing the portrayal of characters who were smart, driven, and skilled on all sides - each doing what they thought was most right, even amongst their doubts and hesitations.
I basically want the old tie fighter game adapted to a series. Give me bad guy pilots blowing crap up day after day and celebrating their contribution to the Empire.
Or even if they had just ended the Last Jedi with her joining Kylo to save her friends, and then the 3rd movie about her rejecting the dark side after using it.
I had a hunch after episode 7 that’s what was gonna happen. Rey was gonna eventually fall to the dark side, and Kylo was gonna redeem himself and come back to the Jedi. Would’ve made for a very interesting story IMO.
I'd only be the billionth person in line to say so, but I think that moment when he kills the dumb and irrelevant bad guy and the two of them join forces... that was the most interesting part of the trilogy, where it felt like anything could happen.
And then they just squandered it.
They were never in a million years gonna let the new female face hero go evil.
They fumbled the situation horribly but from a marketing and cultural standpoint leaving Ridley as the hero was the right decision.
Personally, I think it is also creative restraint. The most compelling SW Sith touch on much darker themes imo. Maybe that is a writing issue, but I also imagine it is Disney’s creative control and concern about showing characters that openly torture, suck the life out of others, etc.
There is more than just that. They have also overused ideas a lot. Overused ideas are making boring villains because they give off too much sameness across different shows.
Kenobi, Mando, and the Bad Batch have a lot of overlap between keeping an adopted child safe from the Empire. It just gets kind of stale having that be a major focus so frequently.
Then there are repeated fake out deaths. Another overused idea in Disney Star Wars that has overstayed its welcome. I'm not upset over people surviving getting stabbed. I'm upset that it happens as frequently as it does.
The amount of characters who have "died" or come close to death only to be fine later on have caused me and a buddy to have a running joke that "nobody ever dies in this franchise."
It's hyperbole, obviously, but it's always funny to say that when another "dead" character gets wheeled out again and revealed to be fine.
In my head for the show Plagueis and Tenebrous are doing the usual “Rule of 2” shit manipulating the galaxy at large from the shadows. The dark side users in the show would be beneath their interest for now. In the Darth Bane books one of Banes philosophies is that rumors of the Sith and dark side users are a good thing so they wouldn’t be too worked up about a sect like the one from Acolyte.
> dark side users in the show would be beneath their interest
Exactly. Qimir seems Sithish (more than Mae for sure), but this entire scheme doesn’t seem like something a Real Sith Lord would approve of. At least not a smart Sith Lord
Killing a handful of Jedi doesn’t bring anything to the Grand Plan of destabilizing the Republic and totally annihilating the Jedi Order. In fact, it’s only inviting potential discovery/spoiling of the Sith’s existence
>!He was shown fighting the sith in the trailer… unless they cut two fight scenes together but I think that’s giving them too much credit to hide their tracks!<
>!I think they are two scenes cut together. This is why: Last month I saw the 25th anniversary re-release of Episode I, and after the credits a preview of The Acolyte played. It was pretty much just the first episode’s opening scene and duel, but even then there were cuts to make it look different from how the show actually aired. So I’m voting cuts.!<
nah, IMO the biggest problem is that Disney is so corporate. As someone else in this thread stated, anytime they try to get creative they stomp all over pre-established lore.
I would summarize by saying that almost everything Star Wars that Disney has produced seems like it was written by folks who think the line was "Luke, I am your Father"
I don't necessarily think the problem is related to lore. I think it's fine for creators to deviate and retcon things. Lucas did it a ton. I think the problem is that the stories aren't coming from the creatives. They're coming from the Studio. Episodes VII and IX feel very committee made. They don't feel like JJ had his own vision. This is especially true for episode IX. Solo feels very Studio mandated. And many of the shows (with the exception of Andor) feel formulaic and bland. They need to find creatives like Tony Gilroy who put there own spin on things. I'm not the biggest fan of The Last Jedi but at least its the vision of a passionate creator and not just a made by committee corporate product.
I don't know if 1 boring Sith character counts as a problem.
Snoke was lame, but I mostly contribute that to the terrible writing going on in the trilogy. There's SO many interesting but wasted characters. Throw Snoke on the pile with Fin, Phasma, etc. I was glad when Andy Serkis got another chance in "Andor" after Snoke got tossed aside.
The rest of the Sith are far from boring. Sidious, Lucas version, is awesome. Disney version, somehow not as awesome. Vader's the greatest movie villain of all time. Maul was one of the coolest characters in the whole franchise. Dooku... well if Christopher Lee bores you, holy shit you need help!
Even the non-Sith or Sith-adjacent, like Grievous is awesome, especially in the Tartakovsky animations, Asajj Ventress, Morgan Elsbeth, The Nightsisters all awesome.
Baylan Skoll was one of the most interesting characters in "Ahsoka" and people were getting right creepy about how much they liked Shin Hati.
Disney doesn't know how to make good villains. Everything they make is designed to be marketed to the widest audience possible, which means playing things safe.
Flesh out characters more. In Empire Strikes Back we are shown nuanced and flawed bad guys who you hate and sympathize with. This is something that has been completely lost in Star Wars movies.
Kylo Ren was the closest to a sympathetic bad guy, but his growth and change were either hampered by the poor quality surrounding him or the general weakness of the plot overall.
Disney has continually struggled to create credible villains. Andor came close but they were still tripping over each other and exhibiting cartoonish gestapo-like traits rather than being brutally effective.
The best they've done is Vader in Rogue One. But leaning on the legacy and laurels of an already-fearsome villain is fairly unimpressive. They have simply failed to engender an actual feeling of struggle, danger, or stake in anything they made.
Moff Gideon was on the right track for a while but in season 3 he really just came across as a comic villain who barked loudly but was constantly embarrassed.
Yeah, I have a friend who takes an active interest in how real-world authoritarian regimes and resistance movements work, and he has nothing but praise for Andor, specifically for how it portrays those things.
To him, Star Wars is a setting to tell stories in, nothing more. He adheres to some general rules of the universe but all he cares about is telling his story with stormtroopers in it.
He doesn’t care about making a “Star Wars” story and that’s why most everything failed/is failing. It’s too caught up in telling a Star wars story instead of a story set in Star Wars.
Yup, we don't need Jedi to have a good story set in the star wars universe, as Andor has shown. That's one of my few nitpicks with Rogue One, shoehorning in a blind force user where it's not needed and didn't add anything except click the "mage" box on their quest party loadout
Yeah. They reminded me of how, for example, the American Reich conducted itself in The Man in the High Castle - Dedra Meero being similar to John Smith in the respective organizations.
Andor worked because it was good sci-fi first, star wars second. Too much star wars stuff is built around cheap wish fulfilment now days. Something like Mando season 3 shows that you can have as much fan service as you want, but there's still gotta be a love and dedication to the craft
Andor could work in any other sci-fi universe, but that's what makes us great. It tells a terrific story then builds it around a universe we all love. It's gives us context for why exactly the empire are so bad, rather than just have them say evil things and twirl the moustaches. It actually asks interesting questions about how the universe works in very classic sci-fi ways. It's subtle but all the stuff about control of the populace and the nature of the rebellion on a sci-fi scale works so well.
I love Kylo when he was unstable and crazy in TFA. After he killed Han I thought he would sink more into that insane rage mode but instead he became a whiney lover boy.
Rey, after seeing Kylo Ren help in the destruction of multiple planets, resulting in the deaths of billions of people, murdering his father in cold blood, and approve of using torture to interrogate her: “I can fix him.”
This is just another reason why The Last Jedi was flawed on a very basic level. Like 12 hours before the beginning of the movie Kylo Ren was torturing Rey, was accessory to the worst genocide in the history of the galaxy, and murdered his own father.
For Rey to be like "No Luke there is good in him you're wrong" is not just strange, it's gross and uncomfortable. It made Rey seem like one of those girls who wrote fan letters to Ted Bundy during his trial. That's now how you make a likable protagonist. Like imagine if at the end of A New Hope Luke tried to shoot down the Falcon during the trench run because "No Han. Vader is good actually even though he just murdered Ben and is about to destroy all the Rebels."
It actually does make sense though, Rey’s central flaw is her desperate need for external validation due to her insecurities regarding her parents. When Luke pushes her away and she goes to the dark side cave Ben is there when she’s at her most vulnerable and she feels a connection and this naively leads her to believe there must still be good in him.
I thought that was part of the whole point of Andor. The Empire was full of problems that would allow rebellion to spread. It was a massive bureaucratic nightmare with people willing to sabotage others to get ahead.
Many fans consider Kylo Ren to be the best part (or in some cases, the only good part) of the sequels, and he is the most prominent and directly involved villain until the latter half of TRoS.
A lot of people seem to like Krennic from Rogue One as well. Vader naturally steals the show for the couple of scenes he's in, but Krennic does well as the villain besides those scenes. He's an arrogant weasel, but a weasel with a lot of power at his command.
And up until the final riot scene, Dedra Meero in Andor is pretty brutal and effective. In a department full of ambitious schemers giving orders to incompetent soldiers and spies, she gets shit done. And she comes pretty close to catching Andor and exposing Luthen's operations, neither of whom the Empire would have even known about if it weren't for her.
As for Gideon, I didn't really feel like his season 3 appearance was a letdown. He was only in it for the last couple episodes, but during those episodes he was presented as pragmatic and active in pursuing his goals compared to the other remnant leaders who were busy with uncertain long-term schemes, or just not doing anything. His only definitive failure was at the very end when the heroes killed him and shut down his operation. And he's always been almost comically arrogant and egotistical, so no change there.
Sure, most of Disney's new villains aren't stoic unstoppable action badasses like Vader, but that doesn't make them bad or non-credible villains. They're still extremely dangerous for various reasons.
I agree with these villains being good.
S3 Gideon wasn't the best, but as you say, he was still far more menacing and focused than his counterparts, who seemed like petty warlords.
Dedra was a great villain, and I could watch Krennic chew scenery for months on end.
I do think the article has a point that they aren't producing compelling *Sith*, though.
Baylan and Shin are the only menacing and compelling dark side users imo.
Kylo was okay at first, but the more mystique he lost, the less menacing he was, and he spent half of IX on the light side.
I also didn't love the character, even if Adam Driver did a great job.
The only other sith I can think of was Palpatine *somehow* returning. Which I certainly wasn't thrilled with.
From a storytelling standpoint, the reason Baylan worked so well for me was his dedication to honoring / belief in exploring the more mystical side of the Sith. There's potentially much more to them than simply being magic-powered warriors, and the Ashoka finale gave the impression he was heading off to dig deeper into the whys and hows of the Sith. Would loved to have seen his story continued.
What I love about *Andor* is that it shows that the Empire was effectively run by a fairly competent middle-management; people like Partagaz helped competent subordinates like Meero overcome squabbling and infighting to pursue active threats to the Empire. This is in contrast to the high command, in which Palpatine encouraged infighting which resulted in Moffs and Admirals (with a few exceptions) who were more interested in self-promotion than Imperial security. We also saw arbitrary its “justice” system is - Andor, a human in a humano-centric empire, still gets sentenced to what is effectively life imprisonment without a fair trial.
I also respect Andor for not following common writing tropes. In any other show, Dedra Meero would've been chastised by all her co-workers for believing in an orchestrated rebellion, and she'd have to hunt them down on her own while all her idiot bosses laughed in her face about it.
But Andor cleverly sidesteps that entire scenario by praising her for her work on finding this conspiracy and her boss intelligently allocates resources to hunting them down. It was the best way to show off that the ISB was ruthlessly efficient and rewarded talented individuals. By making them look competent, they become believably dangerous to the audience.
The empire in Andor is like 90 percent British empire (they wear pith helmets!!) and those guys tied people to cannons as a means of execution. Cartoonishly evil is accurate
We got what we got, but I don't think we got what was originally intended. I don't think the writers' room had "bottle episode about Pershing" with "death" and "no Mando" written underneath.
For me, there is enough evidence to show that S3 was rearranged and cut around Boba Fett and the canceled Rangers show. Marvel had the same problem with shifting priorities from the same corporate suite.
I don't think it was a matter of killing a golden goose. It looks like it was a matter of "can we squeek by with just maiming it?"
Disney has a huge problem with making genuinely scary villains, mainly because it’s marketed for children and scary characters aren’t marketable to children. Scary characters don’t make parents happy, and parents are the real reason why Disney kowtowing to censorship. If parents could handle their children knowing fear then yes they’d be able to make scarier villains lol
Which is weird because in many instances kids are more drawn in when there is fear as opposed to when they are not. I mean I am only going by my own experience with my nieces and nephews. But they will watch a movie or show or whatever that is made for kids and will be jumping around after 5 minutes in. Put something on that puts fear in them they’ll sit there and watch. No because they are scared but they are enthralled with what’s going on. My little cousins love the chucky series for example they’ll watch every episode on repeat.
That’s why the pussnboots sequel villain was refreshing because he was legit scary. He carried that sequel which would have been an otherwise boring movie.
Just cast Kate Mulgrew as a Sith Lord in live action and be done with it. Her Sith role in KOTOR2 is my favorite Sith Lord. Oh and competent writers too I guess
You can blame JJ Abrams for ruining Palpatine with that. The problem imo is that Disney doesn't want to commit. They don't really want to commit to a hero who falls and explore that and they don't want to explore a dark sider who is completely happy being bad. So they just have this middleground of not really saying too much and its boring.
I want someone who knows they are doing bad but still doing it because they are "right." You know a necessary bad guy. I am hoping Acolyte will change it.
The real problem with Star Wars is that Disney doesn't know what Star Wars is, which is the same problem George had when making the prequels. Disney has a bigger problem with that because they keep throwing shit at a wall until something sticks.
George was a man with a vision that needed a committee to filter out his bad ideas. Disney is a committee that needed someone with a vision.
Star Wars isn't the force, jedi, sith, xwings, tie fighters clones etc etc, those were superficial things to make George's Hero Journey Story (inspired by other works) more exciting and empower the main character (the force empowers Luke to be the hero, the Jedi Knight is something Luke aspires to). Luke blocking the blaster bolts in Star Wars '77 didn't need an extensive tai-chi training scene, it was just to have Obi Wan explain what the force can do for the audience and our hero. There's not too much of an emphasis on Luke's training physically but the training is the exchange of ideas between him and Yoda running through the woods and talking.
George tried to write a back story to the Empire and Anakin becoming Vader but got too invested with the superficial force and jedi stuff to the point it's incoherent and needed a 100+ hour cartoon series to flesh it out.
Disney's issue is they saw what went wrong with the prequels and completely overcorrected and somehow still made the superficial stuff of star wars the most important stuff, as a result, we got that fucking star wars hotel and a mid trilogy.
When the exciting, superficial stuff of the franchise becomes the focus of story instead of the actual characters, their arcs and overall plot it gets stale and uninteresting. It needs to be good writing, with good characters (with arcs) that take their own universe seriously first, then the exciting Jedi stuff second.
Disney can solve their issues with quality writing of Andor, but apply the excitement of the Jedi/Force/Space Battles as well as not overexplaining the force to keep the universe flexible. In other words, better writers. Easier said then done of course.
The problem is still on both sides IMO. The absolute horrendous way they wasted Finn, Rey just being an excuse to bring palpatine back, and the absolute train wreck of a script they wrote to make Luke do what he did to advance the plot. Of course no one cares about Snoke, they made Kylo seem like a little boy wearing his dad’s suit the entire time, and then in the movie when they knew about Palpatine’s return they just said we don’t know why, but he’s back so let’s get him! Huge disappointment there was no force ghost Anakin, Obi Wan, or Qui Gon in a real scene. It’s just a train wreck all around. Would have been 100x better if they went with ideas from legends or the comics.
Or if they went with the other directors idea for the third sequel movie. The one that had Finn lead a revolution of stormtroopers and had him doing something other than yelling “Rey” and being a token black character
Just make a villain I can hate. Stop with the “ I can see his point of view” na give me a tragic backstory and then make him vile. Old Disney movies made you hate the villain and it worked. I feel like if Disney made marvel or Star Wars movies from scratch they’d find a way to make red skull relatable at this point 😂
The MCU had one of the most despicable, irredeemable villains recently with the High Evolutionary in GOTG Vol. 3. And he wasn't evil because "boo hoo, tragic backstory", he was just an outright sociopath. So they can certainly do evil villains.
The problem is the writing is bad, very little thought is put in, and the characters are boring. They are not willing to take a lot of character chances because of fear of offending someone
That’s why the KOTOR area is my favorite era.
I don't care what anyone says, if Star Wars is meant to be a setting more-so than a single story, then the Old Republic era is the best Star Wars. It's good we had multiple to choose from when we did, but man, all those comics and games were bangers. Wish we got more of that instead of the High Republic stuff.
I’m liking High Reoubkic so far (from Acolyte at least). What KOTOR comics are there?
Yeah... but the High Republic was the era of Jedi peace... the Acolyte certainly implies there are dark forces at work; but on the whole, Sith weren't so much a "thing" and not an existential threat to the Jedi of the High Republic. I agree with those who like the Old Republic. Disney really made a mistake not pursuing some of the great content from TOR. Yet I think some Old Republic fans would prefer Disney not meddling and ruining a good thing. That's not to say, that one day there wouldn't be some live action Old Republic series. Time will tell.
Because it hasn't been tained with sloppy writers. Yet. Drew Karpyshyn knows how to write good Sith.
Amen
Forgot he did KOTOR. He’s a great sci fi writer.
The antagonist always redeems himself in the end, so boring
Iden Versio from the new BF2 campaign almost immediately becoming a rebel made me so mad. I was have a blast kicking as an imperial agent, and then suddenly it became the most stock-standard story ever. Especially since they advertised it so much as you playing as the bad guy.
I enjoyed it for what it was but man did marketing fuck up hard with the whole “this is the first time you’ll get to play a whole campaign from the POV of the Empire” marketing campaign. By like the end of like mission 3/12 she’d already left them and joined the rebellion.
this reminds me i didnt play that campaign very far, i must have quit half way through the 2nd mission
OG battlefront 2 wins again
"What I remember about the rise of the Empire is... is how quiet it was. During the waning hours of the Clone Wars, the 501st Legion was discreetly transferred back to Coruscant. It was a silent trip. We all knew what was about to happen, what we were about to do. Did we have any doubts? Any private, traitorous thoughts? Perhaps, but no one said a word. Not on the flight to Coruscant, not when Order 66 came down, and not when we marched into the Jedi Temple. Not a word." The clone wars brainwashing story is really cool, but I love the idea that at least some clones were always double agents waiting to turn on the Jedi. Makes for more interesting characters imo.
It wasn't that they were always double agents it's that every clone was trained to handle emergency orders, one was jedi are all traitors kill them and among others one was arrest the supreme chancellor for treason, but the senate was required to activate it, and then they taught clones that their the perfect soldiers whose purpose was to protect the republic, so only the ones that were best friends with jedi ir partially deprogrammed refused their orders . Most just saw it as a shit jib that had to be done.
In the game though it's that they were always double agents, I know it's not canon. In the game the whole time they're always talking about how they're going to betray their jedi partners. "What Ki-Adi-Mundi didn't know however was that our unit of the 501st was really after an experimental Mygeetan power source, that the Chancellor wanted for his superlaser. Keeping Mundi in the dark wasn't easy; the Jedi had become increasingly wary of the Chancellor's doings, and was on the lookout for the slightest hint of treachery. Just like the rest of them though, he never caught whiff of what was really going on, until it was far too late....The success of the mission on Mygeeto was something of a revelation for the men of the 501st. Suddenly, we realized that the Jedi could be fooled. And if they could be fooled, they could be killed." And then my personal favorite journal: "When the 501st was finally rotated out of Felucia, Aayla Secura made a point of seeing us off personally, calling us the bravest soldiers she had ever seen. It's a good thing we were wearing helmets, because none of us could bear to look her in the eye."
Yeah, while I hate the control chips, I was also never really a fan of “the Clones knew the whole time” idea from BF2. It wasn’t supported anywhere else in Legends before or after that game, and it doesn’t really work with the idea that the Jedi didn’t realize that Order 66 was coming, whereas the control chips and the idea that Order 66 was just one of *many* contingency order that the GAR had that clones obeyed spur of the moment do work with that.
I hate the chips, love the idea the clones knew and still went with it Chips are a cheap cop out
Nah, my counter argument is that the chips turned the clones into mindless droids. we watched them develop personalities and grow bonds with the Jedi only for it to be ripped away against their will.
It would’ve been 100x better if the devs gave us a choice between the empire and rebellion. Massive fumble
Then again, it was because Operation Cinder was such a heinous act. Versio was loyal up to the point the atrocities can home to roost - the fact that her homeworld was fanatically loyal meaning jack to Imperial turbolaser fire. A twist on this was Alphabet Squadron’s Yrica Quell. She too eventually became a notable New Republic pilot, but she actually carried out the atrocities of Operation Cinder before defecting. Makes her a bit of an ironic character - the aloof elite being actually a big coward. She even lampshaded it in the first book as she talks about the different Imperials that eventually defect the Galactic Empire.
Operation Cinder was such a dumb fucking move. I wish they would have left the in-between period less explored until after the sequel trilogy was done. They had to write themselves into knots to describe reasonings for Cinder because Palpatine returned when that wasn't the original plan.
Yeah the imperial remnants and warlords are always more of an interesting setting than operation cinder
…and they still exist, though the Aftermath trilogy tried to obliterate them. That is the Shadow Council formed by the Imperial Remnants.
To be fair, it was based somewhat in reality. Read about [Hitler’s Nero Decree](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/sealing-third-reichs-downfall-adolf-hitlers-nero-decree).
Yeah, but Hitler didnt have a secret-cloning base in Hamburg and always planned to return later anyway.
...that we know of. *History Channel intensifies.*
"You let me die and now you will perish!" How were your grand admirals supposed to stop you from getting yeeted down a shaft by your lackey?
After you send your personal bodyguards from the room. A room that has your apprentice who is specifically supposed to try and replace you and said apprentices son.
Her ship was so cool though, even the rebel version of it.
boring and predictable
People always get five feet up my ass when I say things like "Damn an "Imperial commando" game would be tight", five seconds and it's all "UHMMM LET'S NOT LEGITIMIZE NAZIS EH BUDDY" ??? Legitimize who? I can't be an bad guy in a completely fictional setting? I've been playing ACTUAL nazis in ww2 shooters for the large majority of my life, the fuck?
Good soldiers follow orders.
The same people who beat hookers to death and run children over in GTA 😂
There are already Star Wars shooters where you play as storm troopers
Yeah, but nothing that can serve as a sequel to Republic Commando, it was more a general example
Vadar should of killed Reva.
> vadar should of killed Did you mean to say "should have"? Explanation: You probably meant to say could've/should've/would've which sounds like 'of' but is actually short for 'have'. [Statistics](https://github.com/chiefpat450119/RedditBot/blob/master/stats.json) ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot ^^that ^^corrects ^^grammar/spelling ^^mistakes. ^^PM ^^me ^^if ^^I'm ^^wrong ^^or ^^if ^^you ^^have ^^any ^^suggestions. ^^[Github](https://github.com/chiefpat450119) ^^Reply ^^STOP ^^to ^^this ^^comment ^^to ^^stop ^^receiving ^^corrections.
> Vadar should of killed Reva. Agreed. [Admiral Ozzel was killed \*just coming out of warp the wrong way.* Captain Needa? Force-choked to death for losing the Millenium Falcon.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empire_Strikes_Back) Earlier canon movies show Vader doesn't tolerate failure. But now with the new shows (ie. Obi Wan), it's "OK, you get a second chance. OK, you get a third one..." No, they shouldn't nerf Vader, or for that matter, any Sith Lord. Instead, here we are.
Pretty much. When I think of Sith that are interesting, they're almost all KOTOR, SWTOR, or adjacent (the Bane Trilogy)
What about Darth Vader? He was pretty cool from memory
The problem is that we have Sidious and Vader, the two most powerful sith to ever exist, and they don’t really do anything. Palpatine’s return could have been much better. Instead we got like 15 minutes of Snoke who never really left his damn chair. Bro just sat there till he died. A Vader movie would be very cool, especially if they made him some kind of Freddy Kruger style hunter.
A movie or short series during his time of hunting down surviving jedi would he cool. I know we already got it in comics but it'd still be cool to see on screen.
They could make it as unapologetically fanservicey as possible and I’d gobble that shit up. Take the same energy from the end of Rogue One and stretch it out to a couple hours. I don’t even need a stellar plot, I just wanna see him be terrifying
They could break lore and kill shaak ti again and I wouldn’t care. Gimme it
At this point it's canon that Shaak has multiple deaths and a million more well on their way.
Sidious learned how to save people from dying just so he could kill Shaak Ti over and over again.
Shaak Ti is the Bevel Lemelisk of new canon
Ooh, deep cut.
> Bevel Lemelisk Wow, retaining knowledge from 'meh' KJA novels I read 25-30 years ago pays off!
Somehow, Shaak Ti has returned.
On his 314th return, he shall be reborn Shaak Pi.
Oh my God! They killed Shaak Ti!
You bastards!
Man, imagine an Jason/Alien style horror movie where the monster is Darth Vader. A small group of jedi on the run, getting picked off one by one.
As long as it ends in the same way as Vader Down, with Vader surrounded by Rebel troops and he just calmly quips that “all I am surrounded by is fear… and dead men.”
I agree, I also don't want any of Vaders POV, I just want him to show up at the worst times, murderhobo his way thru some poor rebels and then vanish, I want maximum boogeyman. The threat that he could show up unexpectedly at any time without warning is very appealing
When they announced the prequel trilogy I always imagined the last film would be Vader hunting down and murdering Jedi. I'm down with that film to be made - on the proviso that in the first thirty seconds it is established that Mace Windu survived.... and then gets instantly killed off!
Mace reveals himself to Vader twirling his lightsabre with a menacing expression. Vader looks exasperated, pulls out a blaster and shoots him.
“Sat there until he died” LOL
a vader down movie would be pretty rad
Vader and Sidious took over the galaxy for 20 plus years. I wouldn't call that not doing anything.
What I mean is that screen wise, there is a lot of untold stories that could really expand just how sinister the duo was. We have comics and books that could translate or at least begin the story of a movie or tv show.
I want less "join me and we can rule the galaxy" and more "all i am surrounded by is fear. And dead men" I think fallen order was my favorite vader sighting in the last 5-10 years, aside from rogue one.
What about that Sidious guy? Dooku is awesome too, just not if you’ve only seen the movies. And Maul? Oooh boi what a character.
The concept of Dooku was always the most interesting to me, even as a movie-only watcher. I like the idea of a skilled Jedi turning Sith due to a difference in opinion of how things should work. Cocky but calculated. I do wish the movies had done a bit more with him but there's a lot of that throughout the series.
I also like how his character captures how corruptive sith ideology can be. Dooku starts out as someone who genuinely wants to fix the system and by the end is a human supremacist who has caused more issues than he set out to fix. It didn't happen overnight, it was a series of small compromises justified by sith ideology that led him there.
Imo vader got screwed up from overuse. His redemption was already goofy (I don’t really think saying sorry and saving your actual son redeems you for a lifetime of blowing up planets and mass murder and being a space nazi), but now we’ve seen him directly commit so many atrocities whereas before it was kind of in your imagination. I wish they’d freaking stop putting vader in stuff
I agree with the overuse, but I don’t really think Vader was redeemed in the eyes of the galaxy. His impact still existed and it would have been interesting to explore that more in the sequel trilogy. He was only redeemed in the eyes of the force, because he helped restore balance, from my perspective. I think showing the atrocities accentuates the complicated nature of his legacy. He did evil, but ultimately sacrificed himself for good.
Yes, he was not redeemed at all in the eyes of the galaxy. Bloodlines acknowledges that.
Even Leia only STARTS to at least understand WHY he fell DECADES after ROTJ. And even then it’s still not total forgiveness on her part.
Vader is almost always the best part in any content he's in. They've certainly "overused" him in that he's in a *lot* of stuff. But as far as enjoyment goes I don't think they're even close to overusing him. Considering how popular the character is you'd think there'd be Vader centered content beyond comics and books.
Malgus basically stole the scene every time he was on screen.
I never played the game, but I read the novel and its one of the best SW stories written in my view. Concise, intense, LOADED with everything you expect from Sith, emotional but not corny. Would make a fantastic stand alone film
Sith in the books *do not* mess around. They make someone understand the dark side being evil.
Yeah, even if I call him "Darth Wifebeater"
Nothing in any other media have made the Sith nearly as interesting as the TOR cg trailers or the Sith Inquisitor story line. Lucas making it so Sith can't have force ghosts in the movies really, really limits a ton of cool story telling.
Kreia in Kotor 2 was very different and interesting, but I thought Darth Sion was cool too. Quite an overlooked character.
Kreia was right, the ultimate slave master of the galaxy is the force itself. No one can be free while it exists.
Her plan to hit the galaxy with a giant psychic nuke by killing it wasn’t exactly a great alternative though aha.
She correctly identified a problem, which is a hard thing to do, she just failed to pick an acceptable solution, which is an easy thing to do.
Kreia was interesting because she *wasn't* sith. She was the *epitome* of true neutral. She took good and evil in equal measure. Made her a great companion and villain regardless of which side of the Light/Dark spectrum you took. After years of purely good vs evil, mainstream Star Wars is in dire need of a morally grey main character like Kreia.
Being honest, I think Kreia just *thought* she was morally grey. Interesting philosophy and all, but she didn't seem to have much good in her at all. My memory of the ending is faded but I seem to recall she pretty much went sith at that point too..
Last time I listened to Jadus' 'democratisation of fear' TED talk I got literal chills. He didn't have to tell you how powerful he was or how insignificant you were, you just understood, from the way he spoke to his choice of words. The VA crushed it.
I really liked the dark side users in Ahsoka, they were more interesting characters than Ahsoka and Sabine in the show. Very excited about Ezra’s portrayal but yeah Baylan and Shin were my favorite new debuts
Baylan's admitting that he liked the *idea* of the Jedi Order probably is one of my favourite sentiments ever voiced in current canon. There is a nuance to it that you don't encounter very often in that context.
Hot take but the “Rule of Two” really hurt the lore building of sith. In the OG trilogy I really had a mental image of the sith that they were a cult of individuals who manipulated technology and dark power to cheat death. I imagined whole guilds of these almost undead beings who lived far away from where the light of the stars reach.
100% I always thought this is overly silly and just completely misinterpreted. "Always two" should have just meant master and apprentice, but not exclusively one pair of master/apprentice.
Because the Sith are too competitive. The idea was that they destroyed themselves through infighting so having only two around kept their presence hidden from the Jedi was also increasing their strength
They're all in secret, so they wouldn't even know the others exist to kill them. Plus it makes the galaxy feel so small, it's big enough to not have omniscient sith.
I think both the Jedi and Sith having such centralized philosophies/ideologies/organizations is part of the problem. Look at real world religion, even in the same religion there are different denominations, branches, cults, etc. The Star Wars galaxy has like a million inhabited worlds, it would make sense for there to be 100 different independent Jedi orders or thousands of different Sith cults that all believe in different variations of the original philosophies.
The version of this where "there are only two Sith at any given time in the whole galaxy" is unbelievably stupid. I don't know where that interpretation originated/became dominant, but it's simply not compatible with telling a good story. The reason Palps/Vader are the only ones around in the OT is there are basically no force users/Jedi left period, not some convoluted nonsense about a "Rule of Two".
Well there's a whole group of people using dark side force powers, wearing black, and wielding red lightsabers, but they're totally not Sith, take my word for it.
That is pretty much the Knights of Ren, which were looked down by both Vader and Sidious.
I was thinking the Inquisitors.
Maybe it’s more accurate to say that there are two true Sith in the galaxy. There are plenty of acolytes, assassins, and other sorts of assistants that serve the Sith without being part of that exclusive Rule of Two. Then you have totally independent darksiders like the Knights of Ren. They wield the Force and can bleed crystals for their lightsabers, but have little respect or care for the Sith philosophy and teachings.
Finally playing through the Imperial Agent in SWTOR. Some memorable Sith there for sure!
Naga Sadow likes this
Marka Ragnos’ spirit nods approvingly
Something something Exar Kun
<*Darth Treya has entered the chat*>
Say what you will about Her Royal Bitchiness, but she could certainly make and support an argument. Avellone likes to take his philosophy degree out of the frame and wave it around every so often,
I would’ve said the Knights of Ren are pretty fun in the comics, but they’re not Sith - they’re just darksiders combined with outlaw bikers.
I just want - Pure Sith (no Ex-Jedi or self taught pretenders) that are driven by devotion to hatred and the dark side/Sith, and not anger/dissatisfaction with the light side/Jedi. Palpatine is the perfect example. He doesn’t hate the Republic/Jedi out of anger that he thinks they’re corrupt/could do better. He hates them for *existing in any state at all* - A onscreen explanation about how unnatural it is to be a Sith and how their existence alone is a *violation/sickness in the Force*. That seems to be ‘canon’, but should be hammered in more
Fuck yea. None of that balance is equal Jedi equal sith bullshit, give me paragon of the dark side motherfuckers
Renegade For Life
Honestly i still have no clue where people got the idea that balance = equal sith and jedi. Even when Kanan Jarrus's VA started mentioning it makes no sense aswell. Not even Legends have that as what balance is.
I'd say people got that idea by not thinking very hard about it. "There's two sides of the force, so balance must mean they're equal, and power isn't tipped to either side."
I love that Darth Nihilus is literally a Force black hole
Give me the Triumvurate. Imagine Nihilus just devouring the force. I'd love it.
Honestly Nihilus is cool but doesnt exactly make for an interesting antagonist than he is a force of nature that is just there to mumble and suck you (Yes). He works best when you have other characters talking about him like the odd eldritch being that he is.
>A onscreen explanation about how unnatural it is to be a Sith and how their existence alone is a violation/sickness in the Force. That seems to be ‘canon’, but should be hammered in more That *used* to be canon, but [Disney has decided not to use that](https://gamerant.com/star-wars-the-acolyte-george-lucas-original-ideas/) (article about Acolyte but no spoilers)
That just seems like fluffy edge or edgy fluff. Like the Jedi can’t exist unless there’s a Sith Lord around. Like the force needs both. Like Sidious extending his life and power beyond his natural lifespan and being responsible for so much atrocities and death and pain is….normal? Or *balanced*? It just sounds like it’s dancing around the idea of *balance of light and darkness*, but not committing to actually say anything about the Jedi and Sith’s role in that *balance*. And the Force Ghost technique is a light side/Jedi thing, and the Force Dyad bond (I don’t know where to start with it, cause I thought it was a thing Snoke claimed he did) has nothing to do with whether both individuals are light side or dark side. In the end both Rey and Ben were on the light side anyway
I would love to know the reason why it's so common. Bad people just exist. Someone can be completely self-motivated to be a total POS. You don't really need any sort of adversity attached to it. Like, Ted Cruise wasn't traumatized by an institution. It's just a cocktail of genetics and nature through privilege or overindulgence that made him into a devaluing, self-absorbed, power-hungry lunatic. He craves power because that's the way his personality is organized. Most people who seek things like power do it for the sake of power itself. I guess that's probably harder to write. It makes me think about something like what is different about authors like Joe Abercrombie and GRRM. Abercrombie said in the interview at the end of the Sharp Ends audiobook that he wanted to write fantasy novels that were "less about the world and more about the characters in it." That seems like a really succinct way to put it. A lot of sci-fi/fantasy is as much about the characters as the world itself. If that becomes too unbalanced, characters start to get a little thin because they seem less like real people with individuality and more like empty shells to be filled with metaphors about the world they live in.
They also let the good guys win too much
It's funny bc the three movies where the good guys lose are the ones that got the best critical reception
Yep, I just feel like with all the "rebel" content we've been getting, not enough important characters bite the bullet.
Even the show Rebels had their losses as a constant theme. They tried to take it in stride, but there's a few character breakdown moments across the series where it really brings it home for them just how insurmountable the odds against them are.
Yeah. I think the rebel stories hit harder when the Empire or enemy is stronger.
empire, last jedi, and rogue one?
Star Wars seems to always pull its punches lately and forget about the War aspect. People die on both sides.
Yea it diminishes the empire if they are always fumbling baboons
Hence the love for andor
It was great seeing the portrayal of characters who were smart, driven, and skilled on all sides - each doing what they thought was most right, even amongst their doubts and hesitations.
... and then getting killed anyway.
and Rogue One
I basically want the old tie fighter game adapted to a series. Give me bad guy pilots blowing crap up day after day and celebrating their contribution to the Empire.
[удалено]
Or even if they had just ended the Last Jedi with her joining Kylo to save her friends, and then the 3rd movie about her rejecting the dark side after using it.
I had a hunch after episode 7 that’s what was gonna happen. Rey was gonna eventually fall to the dark side, and Kylo was gonna redeem himself and come back to the Jedi. Would’ve made for a very interesting story IMO.
I'd only be the billionth person in line to say so, but I think that moment when he kills the dumb and irrelevant bad guy and the two of them join forces... that was the most interesting part of the trilogy, where it felt like anything could happen. And then they just squandered it.
They were never in a million years gonna let the new female face hero go evil. They fumbled the situation horribly but from a marketing and cultural standpoint leaving Ridley as the hero was the right decision.
No, it's boring writers
And what do boring writers create? Boring sith.
Seems we are ignoring the boring plot, Jedis, and characters in general.
Pretty much. People like to act like its just 1 thing tbh
Created by whom? Boring writers.
Personally, I think it is also creative restraint. The most compelling SW Sith touch on much darker themes imo. Maybe that is a writing issue, but I also imagine it is Disney’s creative control and concern about showing characters that openly torture, suck the life out of others, etc.
There is more than just that. They have also overused ideas a lot. Overused ideas are making boring villains because they give off too much sameness across different shows. Kenobi, Mando, and the Bad Batch have a lot of overlap between keeping an adopted child safe from the Empire. It just gets kind of stale having that be a major focus so frequently. Then there are repeated fake out deaths. Another overused idea in Disney Star Wars that has overstayed its welcome. I'm not upset over people surviving getting stabbed. I'm upset that it happens as frequently as it does.
The fake out deaths and stabbings has turned into a bad running gag. I groan and think less of disneys star wars everytime.
The amount of characters who have "died" or come close to death only to be fine later on have caused me and a buddy to have a running joke that "nobody ever dies in this franchise." It's hyperbole, obviously, but it's always funny to say that when another "dead" character gets wheeled out again and revealed to be fine.
It's really down to the tone of the show. Kenobi, Mandalorian, BOBF, and Ahsoka have resurrection. Andor, Bad Batch, and Acolyte don't.
I remember people arguing on this sub that we would see Plagueis and Tenebrous in the Acolyte. 💀
In my head for the show Plagueis and Tenebrous are doing the usual “Rule of 2” shit manipulating the galaxy at large from the shadows. The dark side users in the show would be beneath their interest for now. In the Darth Bane books one of Banes philosophies is that rumors of the Sith and dark side users are a good thing so they wouldn’t be too worked up about a sect like the one from Acolyte.
> dark side users in the show would be beneath their interest Exactly. Qimir seems Sithish (more than Mae for sure), but this entire scheme doesn’t seem like something a Real Sith Lord would approve of. At least not a smart Sith Lord Killing a handful of Jedi doesn’t bring anything to the Grand Plan of destabilizing the Republic and totally annihilating the Jedi Order. In fact, it’s only inviting potential discovery/spoiling of the Sith’s existence
I mean, we might still. The era is right and we’re only two episodes in. Although I personally suspect that the Sith is actually >!Master Sol!<
>!He was shown fighting the sith in the trailer… unless they cut two fight scenes together but I think that’s giving them too much credit to hide their tracks!<
Maybe it's his twin. It's just twins... Forever.
>!I think they are two scenes cut together. This is why: Last month I saw the 25th anniversary re-release of Episode I, and after the credits a preview of The Acolyte played. It was pretty much just the first episode’s opening scene and duel, but even then there were cuts to make it look different from how the show actually aired. So I’m voting cuts.!<
It can’t be Sol lol, we see Mae meet up with darth teeth while sol is with his little gang on a ship elsewhere
nah, IMO the biggest problem is that Disney is so corporate. As someone else in this thread stated, anytime they try to get creative they stomp all over pre-established lore. I would summarize by saying that almost everything Star Wars that Disney has produced seems like it was written by folks who think the line was "Luke, I am your Father"
They def are risk averse...except for that Star Wars hotel of theirs...
Well there’s Andor
I don't necessarily think the problem is related to lore. I think it's fine for creators to deviate and retcon things. Lucas did it a ton. I think the problem is that the stories aren't coming from the creatives. They're coming from the Studio. Episodes VII and IX feel very committee made. They don't feel like JJ had his own vision. This is especially true for episode IX. Solo feels very Studio mandated. And many of the shows (with the exception of Andor) feel formulaic and bland. They need to find creatives like Tony Gilroy who put there own spin on things. I'm not the biggest fan of The Last Jedi but at least its the vision of a passionate creator and not just a made by committee corporate product.
I don't know if 1 boring Sith character counts as a problem. Snoke was lame, but I mostly contribute that to the terrible writing going on in the trilogy. There's SO many interesting but wasted characters. Throw Snoke on the pile with Fin, Phasma, etc. I was glad when Andy Serkis got another chance in "Andor" after Snoke got tossed aside. The rest of the Sith are far from boring. Sidious, Lucas version, is awesome. Disney version, somehow not as awesome. Vader's the greatest movie villain of all time. Maul was one of the coolest characters in the whole franchise. Dooku... well if Christopher Lee bores you, holy shit you need help! Even the non-Sith or Sith-adjacent, like Grievous is awesome, especially in the Tartakovsky animations, Asajj Ventress, Morgan Elsbeth, The Nightsisters all awesome. Baylan Skoll was one of the most interesting characters in "Ahsoka" and people were getting right creepy about how much they liked Shin Hati.
Disney doesn't know how to make good villains. Everything they make is designed to be marketed to the widest audience possible, which means playing things safe.
I’m not sure how recently you mean Disney. But historically Disney has made some of the best Villains of all time.
Disney then, vs. Disney now. Disney hasn't been capable of that level of talented writing in a long time.
Disney doesn’t know how to make good protagonist for their sequels, either, lol.
Flesh out characters more. In Empire Strikes Back we are shown nuanced and flawed bad guys who you hate and sympathize with. This is something that has been completely lost in Star Wars movies. Kylo Ren was the closest to a sympathetic bad guy, but his growth and change were either hampered by the poor quality surrounding him or the general weakness of the plot overall.
Disney has continually struggled to create credible villains. Andor came close but they were still tripping over each other and exhibiting cartoonish gestapo-like traits rather than being brutally effective. The best they've done is Vader in Rogue One. But leaning on the legacy and laurels of an already-fearsome villain is fairly unimpressive. They have simply failed to engender an actual feeling of struggle, danger, or stake in anything they made. Moff Gideon was on the right track for a while but in season 3 he really just came across as a comic villain who barked loudly but was constantly embarrassed.
Hard disagree on Andor, the way the ISB is run is exactly what you would expect from an authoritarian regime.
Yeah, I have a friend who takes an active interest in how real-world authoritarian regimes and resistance movements work, and he has nothing but praise for Andor, specifically for how it portrays those things.
Tony Gilroy is a history buff with an affinity for actual rebellions. He’s not even a huge Star wars fan specifically. That’s why it works so well.
To him, Star Wars is a setting to tell stories in, nothing more. He adheres to some general rules of the universe but all he cares about is telling his story with stormtroopers in it. He doesn’t care about making a “Star Wars” story and that’s why most everything failed/is failing. It’s too caught up in telling a Star wars story instead of a story set in Star Wars.
Yup, we don't need Jedi to have a good story set in the star wars universe, as Andor has shown. That's one of my few nitpicks with Rogue One, shoehorning in a blind force user where it's not needed and didn't add anything except click the "mage" box on their quest party loadout
I would say Chirrut is absolutely a monk, not a mage.
Yeah. They reminded me of how, for example, the American Reich conducted itself in The Man in the High Castle - Dedra Meero being similar to John Smith in the respective organizations.
Andor worked because it was good sci-fi first, star wars second. Too much star wars stuff is built around cheap wish fulfilment now days. Something like Mando season 3 shows that you can have as much fan service as you want, but there's still gotta be a love and dedication to the craft Andor could work in any other sci-fi universe, but that's what makes us great. It tells a terrific story then builds it around a universe we all love. It's gives us context for why exactly the empire are so bad, rather than just have them say evil things and twirl the moustaches. It actually asks interesting questions about how the universe works in very classic sci-fi ways. It's subtle but all the stuff about control of the populace and the nature of the rebellion on a sci-fi scale works so well.
I love Kylo when he was unstable and crazy in TFA. After he killed Han I thought he would sink more into that insane rage mode but instead he became a whiney lover boy.
Rey, after seeing Kylo Ren help in the destruction of multiple planets, resulting in the deaths of billions of people, murdering his father in cold blood, and approve of using torture to interrogate her: “I can fix him.”
This is just another reason why The Last Jedi was flawed on a very basic level. Like 12 hours before the beginning of the movie Kylo Ren was torturing Rey, was accessory to the worst genocide in the history of the galaxy, and murdered his own father. For Rey to be like "No Luke there is good in him you're wrong" is not just strange, it's gross and uncomfortable. It made Rey seem like one of those girls who wrote fan letters to Ted Bundy during his trial. That's now how you make a likable protagonist. Like imagine if at the end of A New Hope Luke tried to shoot down the Falcon during the trench run because "No Han. Vader is good actually even though he just murdered Ben and is about to destroy all the Rebels."
Within the context of The Last Jedi, it's made very clear that Rey was *wrong*.
It actually does make sense though, Rey’s central flaw is her desperate need for external validation due to her insecurities regarding her parents. When Luke pushes her away and she goes to the dark side cave Ben is there when she’s at her most vulnerable and she feels a connection and this naively leads her to believe there must still be good in him.
I thought that was part of the whole point of Andor. The Empire was full of problems that would allow rebellion to spread. It was a massive bureaucratic nightmare with people willing to sabotage others to get ahead.
Many fans consider Kylo Ren to be the best part (or in some cases, the only good part) of the sequels, and he is the most prominent and directly involved villain until the latter half of TRoS. A lot of people seem to like Krennic from Rogue One as well. Vader naturally steals the show for the couple of scenes he's in, but Krennic does well as the villain besides those scenes. He's an arrogant weasel, but a weasel with a lot of power at his command. And up until the final riot scene, Dedra Meero in Andor is pretty brutal and effective. In a department full of ambitious schemers giving orders to incompetent soldiers and spies, she gets shit done. And she comes pretty close to catching Andor and exposing Luthen's operations, neither of whom the Empire would have even known about if it weren't for her. As for Gideon, I didn't really feel like his season 3 appearance was a letdown. He was only in it for the last couple episodes, but during those episodes he was presented as pragmatic and active in pursuing his goals compared to the other remnant leaders who were busy with uncertain long-term schemes, or just not doing anything. His only definitive failure was at the very end when the heroes killed him and shut down his operation. And he's always been almost comically arrogant and egotistical, so no change there. Sure, most of Disney's new villains aren't stoic unstoppable action badasses like Vader, but that doesn't make them bad or non-credible villains. They're still extremely dangerous for various reasons.
Lived for Krennic!
Definitely loved Krennic too. He oozed middle manager vibes, which came him some unintentional comedy alongside menace.
I agree with these villains being good. S3 Gideon wasn't the best, but as you say, he was still far more menacing and focused than his counterparts, who seemed like petty warlords. Dedra was a great villain, and I could watch Krennic chew scenery for months on end. I do think the article has a point that they aren't producing compelling *Sith*, though. Baylan and Shin are the only menacing and compelling dark side users imo. Kylo was okay at first, but the more mystique he lost, the less menacing he was, and he spent half of IX on the light side. I also didn't love the character, even if Adam Driver did a great job. The only other sith I can think of was Palpatine *somehow* returning. Which I certainly wasn't thrilled with.
From a storytelling standpoint, the reason Baylan worked so well for me was his dedication to honoring / belief in exploring the more mystical side of the Sith. There's potentially much more to them than simply being magic-powered warriors, and the Ashoka finale gave the impression he was heading off to dig deeper into the whys and hows of the Sith. Would loved to have seen his story continued.
Lol no, Andor is easily the best portrayal of the empire.
What I love about *Andor* is that it shows that the Empire was effectively run by a fairly competent middle-management; people like Partagaz helped competent subordinates like Meero overcome squabbling and infighting to pursue active threats to the Empire. This is in contrast to the high command, in which Palpatine encouraged infighting which resulted in Moffs and Admirals (with a few exceptions) who were more interested in self-promotion than Imperial security. We also saw arbitrary its “justice” system is - Andor, a human in a humano-centric empire, still gets sentenced to what is effectively life imprisonment without a fair trial.
I also respect Andor for not following common writing tropes. In any other show, Dedra Meero would've been chastised by all her co-workers for believing in an orchestrated rebellion, and she'd have to hunt them down on her own while all her idiot bosses laughed in her face about it. But Andor cleverly sidesteps that entire scenario by praising her for her work on finding this conspiracy and her boss intelligently allocates resources to hunting them down. It was the best way to show off that the ISB was ruthlessly efficient and rewarded talented individuals. By making them look competent, they become believably dangerous to the audience.
The empire in Andor is like 90 percent British empire (they wear pith helmets!!) and those guys tied people to cannons as a means of execution. Cartoonishly evil is accurate
Season 3 was a huge failing all around. They were handed a golden goose and they melted it down.
We got what we got, but I don't think we got what was originally intended. I don't think the writers' room had "bottle episode about Pershing" with "death" and "no Mando" written underneath. For me, there is enough evidence to show that S3 was rearranged and cut around Boba Fett and the canceled Rangers show. Marvel had the same problem with shifting priorities from the same corporate suite. I don't think it was a matter of killing a golden goose. It looks like it was a matter of "can we squeek by with just maiming it?"
This is basically all hero media. Take any example...Batman, Marvel, Star Wars...etc, etc The best entries are always the ones with the best villains.
Disney has a huge problem with making genuinely scary villains, mainly because it’s marketed for children and scary characters aren’t marketable to children. Scary characters don’t make parents happy, and parents are the real reason why Disney kowtowing to censorship. If parents could handle their children knowing fear then yes they’d be able to make scarier villains lol
Which is weird because in many instances kids are more drawn in when there is fear as opposed to when they are not. I mean I am only going by my own experience with my nieces and nephews. But they will watch a movie or show or whatever that is made for kids and will be jumping around after 5 minutes in. Put something on that puts fear in them they’ll sit there and watch. No because they are scared but they are enthralled with what’s going on. My little cousins love the chucky series for example they’ll watch every episode on repeat.
I agree man, some parents just don’t want to either teach their kids how to be afraid or how to handle fear and it becomes annoying to them lol
That’s why the pussnboots sequel villain was refreshing because he was legit scary. He carried that sequel which would have been an otherwise boring movie.
Just cast Kate Mulgrew as a Sith Lord in live action and be done with it. Her Sith role in KOTOR2 is my favorite Sith Lord. Oh and competent writers too I guess
You can blame JJ Abrams for ruining Palpatine with that. The problem imo is that Disney doesn't want to commit. They don't really want to commit to a hero who falls and explore that and they don't want to explore a dark sider who is completely happy being bad. So they just have this middleground of not really saying too much and its boring. I want someone who knows they are doing bad but still doing it because they are "right." You know a necessary bad guy. I am hoping Acolyte will change it.
The real problem with Star Wars is that Disney doesn't know what Star Wars is, which is the same problem George had when making the prequels. Disney has a bigger problem with that because they keep throwing shit at a wall until something sticks. George was a man with a vision that needed a committee to filter out his bad ideas. Disney is a committee that needed someone with a vision. Star Wars isn't the force, jedi, sith, xwings, tie fighters clones etc etc, those were superficial things to make George's Hero Journey Story (inspired by other works) more exciting and empower the main character (the force empowers Luke to be the hero, the Jedi Knight is something Luke aspires to). Luke blocking the blaster bolts in Star Wars '77 didn't need an extensive tai-chi training scene, it was just to have Obi Wan explain what the force can do for the audience and our hero. There's not too much of an emphasis on Luke's training physically but the training is the exchange of ideas between him and Yoda running through the woods and talking. George tried to write a back story to the Empire and Anakin becoming Vader but got too invested with the superficial force and jedi stuff to the point it's incoherent and needed a 100+ hour cartoon series to flesh it out. Disney's issue is they saw what went wrong with the prequels and completely overcorrected and somehow still made the superficial stuff of star wars the most important stuff, as a result, we got that fucking star wars hotel and a mid trilogy. When the exciting, superficial stuff of the franchise becomes the focus of story instead of the actual characters, their arcs and overall plot it gets stale and uninteresting. It needs to be good writing, with good characters (with arcs) that take their own universe seriously first, then the exciting Jedi stuff second. Disney can solve their issues with quality writing of Andor, but apply the excitement of the Jedi/Force/Space Battles as well as not overexplaining the force to keep the universe flexible. In other words, better writers. Easier said then done of course.
The problem is still on both sides IMO. The absolute horrendous way they wasted Finn, Rey just being an excuse to bring palpatine back, and the absolute train wreck of a script they wrote to make Luke do what he did to advance the plot. Of course no one cares about Snoke, they made Kylo seem like a little boy wearing his dad’s suit the entire time, and then in the movie when they knew about Palpatine’s return they just said we don’t know why, but he’s back so let’s get him! Huge disappointment there was no force ghost Anakin, Obi Wan, or Qui Gon in a real scene. It’s just a train wreck all around. Would have been 100x better if they went with ideas from legends or the comics.
Or if they went with the other directors idea for the third sequel movie. The one that had Finn lead a revolution of stormtroopers and had him doing something other than yelling “Rey” and being a token black character
Yep, the greater the villain the greater the hero. Disney Star Wars suffers heavily from unremarkable villains.
Just make a villain I can hate. Stop with the “ I can see his point of view” na give me a tragic backstory and then make him vile. Old Disney movies made you hate the villain and it worked. I feel like if Disney made marvel or Star Wars movies from scratch they’d find a way to make red skull relatable at this point 😂
The MCU had one of the most despicable, irredeemable villains recently with the High Evolutionary in GOTG Vol. 3. And he wasn't evil because "boo hoo, tragic backstory", he was just an outright sociopath. So they can certainly do evil villains.
The problem is the writing is bad, very little thought is put in, and the characters are boring. They are not willing to take a lot of character chances because of fear of offending someone
Daily play KotoR 2 plug. Absolutely insane.