The Force Awakens Spoiler Thread

[Contrabardus]

So... George Lucas says he sold Star Wars to "White Slavers".
Its at 2 min in.
Sound to me someone is a bit jealous.  Maybe he thought that he would have more input and he is irritated that no one cares.

I wish people would stop posting this as if it was still relevant or really representative of how he's been behaving in regard to the film. It's not. This interview is old, like, before he ever saw the movie old.

He has since seen the film, he got a private viewing of it prior to any premiers, and he said he really liked it. He's been pretty supportive of it since then and has attended several premiers. He was under no obligation to do so and he gets paid the same no matter what he does.

This was not long into the production of the film and he makes some good points. Every Star Wars film he made was full of new visual ideas despite all their faults, even the prequels. He's on record as saying he never made the movies for the fans to begin with, and made the movies he wanted to make. This falls in line with his record of film making when he's on his own and in control. He makes what he wants to make and people like it or don't.

I'm not singing his praise, just pointing out that this isn't really representative of his position on the matter. It just seems to be an incident where his somewhat justifiable feelings got the better of him. I'm not anywhere near the diva he's reported to be, but even I would be a bit bitter if I had to deal with all the shit he's gotten after the prequels.

All the best Star Wars movies are the ones where people had the ability to tell him no. The ones he didn't write on his own. There is also legitimate speculation that the original Star Wars may have been more of his ex-wife's idea than his own. She may have had more to do with the story than he does, and it's worth noting that he used to give credit to her for it until they were divorced, at which point he started claiming it as his idea alone.

The prequels biggest issue was him. No one could tell him no and he had free reign. He was reportedly petulant and petty about anyone who tried to criticize his ideas. Given how they came out compare to the originals, I'm inclined to believe that maybe his wife deserves more credit for Star Wars than he admits. I'm also inclined to give more credit to Lawrence Kasdan for the two sequels being good than Lucas [and Gary Kurtz and Gilbert Taylor for the original coming out how it did to be honest].

I give him credit for the visuals of Star Wars and that's pretty much it. The look of the world and ship design, the aliens and all that sort of thing. I think the effects and overall design are his biggest mark on the films, and that's about it. That's no small thing either, as the biggest impact Star Wars had on film making was in that area. He's an innovator and a genius in that regard no doubt, but he's also not a jack of all trades and takes way too much creative credit for pretty much everything he's been involved with.

Pretty much everything else was done well because of someone else's work that he takes credit for. I think most of the faults are his doing as well, particularly the lack of interest in dialogue and actor performances. Most of the actors in the Star Wars movies can act better than they do in those films and have done so with better directors in other movies. I think the issues with the acting in the prequels are his doing, and not really the actors fault.

He started to believe in his own glory stealing delusions and thought he could do better than the people who really did all the work on the previous films, and then got proven wrong for two movies before his humility finally checked him and he went for help with Episode III, which is why it's the best of the prequels. It did a valiant job of trying to fix the mess of the previous two films, and only somewhat managed it. It also had the best actor performances out of the prequels for what it's worth, that's not saying everyone was good, just that it's the best out of the three.

It's also worth noting that he seems to realize that was a bad way to put it right away as he stops talking immediately and looks a little uncomfortable. He's likened it to a divorce several times and has since been okay with the new film and spoke quite positively about it. He doesn't work for Disney either, so he's not under any obligation to like or pretend to like the new films. I think he was just being a bit miffed that he was basically told that they didn't really want him involved anymore here, and that's not an unreasonable reaction given how tied he is to the franchise. I think he was expecting to be a consultant. Possibly even that he was one at some point in production and kept getting told no until they just told him that he wasn't really needed anymore.

He is known for being petty and sensitive to the point of getting butthurt, I think this interview is representative of that on some level, but it's also not really representative of his stance on the matter given his behavior since this interview. He's been surprisingly decent given his reputation about it all and seems to be fine with the new film. I'm actually kind of surprised given his reputation as a prima donna.

George Lucas is a whiny bitch who takes credit for other people's work, he's kind of like Stan Lee in that regard. However, I don't think this video accurately portrays his opinion in regard to this particular film. He seems to have gotten over this a while ago and is pretty supportive of Force Awakens.

EDIT:

George Lucas discussed Star Wars with Charlie Rose, saying "I sold them to the 'white slavers.'"

Update: Lucas has issued a statement apologizing for referring to Disney as "white slavers."
"I want to clarify my interview on the Charlie Rose Show. It was for the Kennedy Center Honors and conducted prior to the premiere of the film. I misspoke and used a very inappropriate analogy and for that I apologize.
I have been working with Disney for 40 years and chose them as the custodians of Star Wars because of my great respect for the company and Bob Iger's leadership. Disney is doing an incredible job of taking care of and expanding the franchise. I rarely go out with statements to clarify my feelings but I feel it is important to make it clear that I am thrilled that Disney has the franchise and is moving it in such exciting directions in film, television and the parks. Most of all I'm blown away with the record breaking blockbuster success of the new movie and am very proud of JJ and Kathy."

 

[daniel_gudman]

You could say the exact same thing about A New Hope.

No, see, in A New Hope, it lacked a bunch of background detail and explanation like you said, but the motives for the rest of the characters was more clear, more visceral.

Luke was a farmboy from the west end of nowhere and wanted out, he wanted more. He planned on enlisting in the Imperial Navy and becoming a TIE fighter to get out; he had a plan for his future, he even went behind his adoptive parent's backs to get the ball rolling; but he wanted them to approve. And then when he got caught up in a Space Wizard's quest, he latched onto that as a thing to do after his Aunt and Uncle got laserbeamed.

Han was desperate for money and took a contract that was a way bigger deal than he expected. All of his characterization, his annoyance at getting pulled into such a big deal when he was a smuggler, not a rebel, all of that at least made sense.

But Finn?

Why did Finn want to stop being a Stormtrooper??

I never got a sense of why. The scene when he was not willing to lasergun down a bunch of desert people was good, and interesting as in inversion of A New Hope with the stormtroopers massacring that Jawa sandcrawler, and Beru + Owen.

But that unwillingness to kill wasn't followed up on! The one thing that made him different and special wasn't kept, once he didn't need it when the mask came off!

He was perfectly happy to lasergun people he grew up with, his people, when it was established that Stormtroopers (like him) are conscripts who didn't choose any of that.

His opening scene, where Finn was introduced, was uncertainty and hesitation. He knew he didn't want to participate, but he wasn't sure enough it was wrong to stop it.

But the next time we see him, he's fully committed to throwing away everything, betraying everything he grew up with, for the sake of... what? Not being a designated "bad guy"? If that was his best friend who got lasergunned down and smeared fingerprints on his facemask while bleeding to death, shouldn't Finn have, I don't know, resented his best friend's murderer, instead of going up to the guy and saying "hey let me help you break out?"

That's the kind of plot events you get when you say, "right, what if a Bad Guy decided to become a Good Guy", not a story about an infantryman suffering a crisis of faith about his country.

When Memetic Badass Stormtrooper shows up and throws away his lasergun to have a melee duel (y u no use gun???), that would have been a perfect time for Finn to get in a screaming match as he tries to justify himself to his people. But he didn't feel any need to explain himself to other stormtroopers, he didn't hesitate to kill them, because as a character he wasn't rooted enough that it actually wasn't worth a damn that he used to be a stormtrooper.

Compare that to Vader vs. Obi-won in A New Hope, where they talked a bit, tried to get the other one to agree they were right even though rationally that was ridiculous, but it was because they knew each other; and only after that did they duel with lazorswords.

"Traitor!" Dat Stormtrooper roared.

"I'm not!" Finn roared back.

And then they shout back and forth as they're wailing on each other, and later there's a quiet moment, just ten seconds where one of them is sitting and looking at the weapon in their hands with a complex expression on their face.

Forget Kylo Renn and Rey and Luke Skywalker and all that, don't you want to have Finn and that guy clash in the next two movies and conflict over what Stormtroopers should be, and hang destiny and Force Prophecies?

As for Rey,
Her character was tighter, but it was annoying that the "I have to wait" thing was so half-assed. I got the sense her arc was just over-written, that it was revised too many times by too many writers until there are lots of details that are leftover from other drafts; I didn't get as worked up about it, because it wasn't so obviously an infuriating fumble like Finn's non-arc was.

But looking back, when I ask myself "what did Rey want, for herself", the best answer was probably "for her parents / abandonment figures to come back and pick her up", and that could work really well if they were, like, Jedis who knew that they were going to kick the bucket but figured they'd get Luke to come pick her up, and then that message got fumbled so she was in the lurch. That scene, where she's like "you mean you just forgot me?", that could really work.

For Rey what bugged me the most was how competent she was in Force Stuff without any training at all, but there are plenty of twists that would handle that, so while it annoys me, I also feel like I should mostly hold my complaints about that until the story is complete.

As for Kylo Renn,
He was too much of a loser to be a bad guy, the idea that goomba was capable of cutting down a bunch more force-users while Master Skywalker couldn't stop him... I didn't buy it, I guess? He certainly had too much trouble lazordueling two amateurs for me to believe it. I can't see any story where he's not an emotional weakling that makes any sense to me. I wouldn't like such a story, but I wouldn't like it based on personal preferences, it could still be really solid as a story.

So I guess that's the thing.

Of the three characters introduced in this new movie,
Kylo Renn was too pathetic for me to care about,
Rey was solid but perhaps overwritten,
and Finn was a series of contrivances, not a character.

 

[Altered Nova]

Forget Kylo Renn and Rey and Luke Skywalker and all that, don't you want to have Finn and that guy clash in the next two movies and conflict over what Stormtroopers should be, and hang destiny and Force Prophecies?

I do now!

Man, you just put words to something that had bugging me ever since I saw the movie but I couldn't ever put my finger on it. After Finn puts on Poe's jacket, the fact that he used to be a stormtrooper becomes utterly irrelevant up until it's time for him to tell the rebels about Deathstar 3.0's weak point.

He never hesitates to kill his old friends and comrades. He never tries to explain himself to them or convince any of them to also defect. He never shows any kind of ignorance or misunderstandings about the way the outside world works, as you would expect from someone raised on fascist propaganda and whose access outside information was certainly severely restricted. None of the other rebels ever suspect that he might be a double agent or distrust or dislike him in any way because of his origin.

Considering that Finn is the first (canon) Imperial defector Star Wars protagonist (that I'm aware of - Not counting Darth Vader since he died five minutes after defecting) you'd think they would have mined that unique backstory for all the drama they could squeeze out of it.

 

[Contrabardus]

EDIT: It's been pointed out that Fin does kill one Stormtrooper during the bar assault scene with the lightsaber before he fights the shock baton trooper. So I'm wrong that he doesn't kill any Stormtroopers prior to the planetary destruction, but my overall point is still valid here.

I'm seeing a lot of rose colored glasses giving Episode IV a pass for nostalgia reasons for the exact same things that Episode VII is getting picked apart for. There seems to be an active effort to dislike Force Awakens and brush the same issues in Episode IV under the rug for no other reason than personal bias due to nostalgia.

Fin doesn't become a pacifist. Nothing remotely suggests that. It's not that he's killing that bothers him, it's why and who he's killing that gets to him. He becomes disenfranchised with the First Order. Fin understands the difference between being a soldier and being a murderer and actually gives a shit about the difference between the two. His fellow troopers do not and just follow orders without question as they were programmed to, it didn't take with him for some reason. The film is actually pretty clear about this and it's part of the reason he's so afraid and big on getting away from them. He knows that he'd be lucky if they just killed him if he's captured.

It's also worth noting that at no point in the film does he mow down his fellow troopers. The only scene he actually kills any of his fellow stormtroopers in the film is during the escape from the Star Destroyer sequence, and he does more property damage than anything else. I covered this earlier, he tries to escape by causing as little damage as possible, but circumstances prevent a clean escape and Poe kind of eggs him on. At that point, he's firing to keep their escape vehicle from being destroyed, not with the intention of murdering everyone on the ship. He also does it mostly because he's clumsy and doesn't know how the turrets work in the Tie, he's not a pilot or gunner. He manages to do all right once they get outside the ship, but doesn't really figure it out until the Millennium Falcon sequence, and even then doesn't do a great job as his turret is damaged.

It's never a case of 'I don't want to kill anyone' it's 'I didn't sign up to kill defenseless captured and controlled civilians who aren't resisting, I signed on to bring peace and order to the galaxy to protect people like this, and that's apparently just a BS line so fuck these people'. Yes, I am aware he didn't 'sign up' but the principal still applies here. It wasn't how he was told things would be and he figured out he couldn't be what they wanted him to be. He likely also knows how First Order troopers are obtained, something else that is explained in the film, and has no familial ties to them. They seem to actually discourage that sort of thing. It's worth noting that being desensitized to death is probably part of his training as a Stormtrooper as well, at least in regard to enemy combatants. He's a lot less likely to think much about killing someone who is shooting back. So there's that too.

Again, Fin does not kill any Stormtroopers after the initial escape when he was panicked and had no idea what he was doing, until after they blow up multiple planets. The only weapon he really uses is the lightsaber, and he gets his ass handed to him every time he uses it. He's also acting either protectively or defensively both times this happens, and is not the aggressor in either case. Fin doesn't kill much of anybody throughout the film outside of the escape sequence, and even then it's not that many. He spends most of the film without a weapon and when he does have one he doesn't have much opportunity to use it. Technically, he does kill a few pilots, but they were shooting at the ship he's in first and it's not exactly a wholesale slaughter either. Rey actually has more to do with those kills than he does outside of one of them, much like the escape sequence with Poe in the Tie.

We do know what motivates Finn just as well as we know what motivates Luke in episode IV, which is not very much in either case. Both are deep character development fails. Luke is more bummed out about the old hermit who lived nearby's death than he is about the death of the people who raised him. Fin reacts more to the death of his fellow trooper than Luke does to his foster parents who raised him from an infant. That's not really any different than Fin's apparent indifference about his fellow stormtroopers lives.

It's also worth noting that him being a former stormtrooper does indeed matter at several points in the story a little. When he owns up to Rey, and it's implied that everyone but her noticed. Plus, there's the segment where he faces off against the trooper who throws down with him. The reason that fight played out the way it did is because he was a stormtrooper, it also matters when they get to Starkiller base at several points. A notable example is when they deal with Phasma and he gets in her face once they have her held captive. It's never a huge plot point after the escape beyond his hiding it and eventual confession, but there are several small moments where it matters to the context of his actions. I'd agree it's not the best handled sublpot, but it's not really handled any worse than some of the ones in Episode IV which is my only point here.

We don't need to hear about how Fin is going to try to join the academy. He's already a Stormtrooper. His future plans are explained by others, Phasma mostly when she speaks of how well he's done in training and that they had high hopes for him. This serves the same purpose as Luke's 'join the academy' whining, and it's less annoying.

There's also no situation Fin is in where he wouldn't know how to get by. Stormtroopers obviously get an education, and he's never put into a position where he needs to know how to be normal. The only time he is, he's awkward, notably his interactions with Rey on a social level. He's also a little slow on the uptake in some scenes and takes a moment longer to understand exactly what's going on than some of the other characters.

Rey's powers are something that need to be explained, but there's no reason they need to be explained in -this- movie. Again, we all know we're dealing with a story that will take place over multiple films. It's pretty obvious that it will be explained. Whether it's a good explanation or not is largely irrelevant. This falls in line with the same lack of information we had about certain things coming out of A New Hope and Empire. The conversations and speculations about this movie and the same sorts of conversations that happened between Star Wars and Empire, and Empire and Jedi are eerily similar in fact. She is weirdly powerful here, but it's also obvious there is a reason behind it.

Kylo Ren is far, far better developed than Darth Vader in episode IV. I get that you don't like him personally, and that's fine, especially since you're not really supposed to. He's supposed to be a poser in a mask trying to act like something he's not, the movie outright says this. He's not supposed to be a huge threat, and he's meant to be bratty and conflicted. He's actually one of the things most people liked most about the movie because they don't try to make him Darth Vader right away. He also displays quite a bit of power, he manages to stop a laser bolt in mid air for a prolonged period of time and freezes people in their tracks more than once.

It's also worth pointing out, that no one has yet said that -he- was the one who killed the Jedi order, or that if he did, that he did it alone. There are other Knights of Ren, and Snoke, who may or may not be Darth Plageuis, Palpatine's old master. We also don't know that Luke was present for that, we don't know any of the details about it, and you're assuming an awful lot. We also didn't know a lot about the Clone Wars, what happened to Darth Vader, who he really was, or all sorts of similarly name dropped events in Episode IV that weren't explained for several sequels.

It's also worth noting that Kylo does not get stood up to by Fin. He's fighting injured and not at his best sure, but even then as soon as he gets a nick from Fin he lays him out. Even when Rey gets the lightsaber she runs from him. The bulk of their lightsaber battle his him chasing her down while she backs and runs away from him. Only at the end, after he's no doubt lost tons of blood from his belly wound, has an injured shoulder, and is still reeling from killing his own father, does she manage to get the upper hand. The reason he's pounding on his wound is to keep himself from passing out from blood loss and to keep himself alert, he's not doing it to psych himself up. He's using the pain to jolt himself to his senses and keep himself on his feet.

Again, we don't know much about her or why she's so powerful. This is clearly deliberate. She may not be as 'untrained' as we are speculating. We also know there are two more movies in which this will be explained. Vader's powers were not clearly explained either, nor were Luke's abilities. The only reason we know about the 'limitations' she should have are because Force powers have been fleshed out over several films. Nothing in this movie contradicts any of that yet. Force powers are described as only being limited by mental blocks and that the Force can indeed show Jedi things. So while flimsy as an explanation, it does fall in line with what we learn about how the Force can work in other films, even if it is a bit extreme and kind of out there. I doubt they're going to leave that as the explanation, and I would think it's stupid if they do, but technically it is possible, even if extremely unlikely, based on the information given in the other movies.

I'm not saying Force Awakens is a perfect movie with the greatest most coherent and hole free plot ever here. It has issues, but so does Episode IV. The exact same issues really. Episode IV is getting a pass and having those issues brushed aside because nostalgia and rose colored glasses. Much like Episode IV, Episode VII was meant to be one part of a larger story. It was never meant to be a complete narrative that ties up every loose string, and it left several dangling intentionally. Episode IV made it to the screen because it was the most complete segment of the story that Lucas, or his wife, had fleshed out that would make a viable film. They didn't know that there was going to be a sequel, but it's also clear that it was only part of a larger story from the start, and left a lot unanswered because of that. Episode VII has the same issue, it's a part 1 of 3, and in it's case it knows there are at least two more films to come.

The hero characters in IV were just as shallow and underdeveloped as they are in this film, as were all of the villains. They didn't get any deeper until Empire, which had the benefit of a much better writer doing the heavy lifting. If anything, this film has the benefit of a far more developed character in the form of Kylo Ren. He got more character development in this one film than most Star Wars characters got in two movies. He was certainly far more developed than Darth Vader was. Vader was just a thug in a mask who used to know Obi Wan back in the day, and that's basically it. Kylo Ren is supposed to be petulant and unsure of himself, the whole point of him is that he's not Darth Vader, but also that he does have the potential to become him, or something worse.

He's also clearly not supposed to be any threat to someone like Luke. That's what Snoke is there for, or at least that's what we are meant to think.

This movie is meant to create more questions than answers. That's kind of the point of the opening film to a trilogy, to get things started and create threads to be tied up later. If anything, most of its faults are because it's too much like Episode IV, and that includes in regard to character and plot development.

 

[Jimbobob5536]

Pretty sure he does kill one ST with the lightsaber by running them through from the back; just before he fights the electro-baton trooper.

 

[Contrabardus]

Pretty sure he does kill one ST with the lightsaber by running them through from the back; just before he fights the electro-baton trooper.

I don't remember that, but I've only seen it once so far. Now that you mention it, I do recall it, but it doesn't change anything. My overall point still stands here. He really only reacts defensively to being attacked. In the case of an assault such as the one that he was involved in during that scene, even running a guy through the back qualifies as defensive.

He isn't out to destroy the First Order until after they really show their true face by blowing up several planets full of people. That's when the gloves come off and he seriously decides 'fuck these guys' and goes all in with the Resistance.

 

[Altered Nova]

Contra, I think you have significantly misunderstood Finn's motivation. Finn never "went all in" with the resistance, nor did he want to destroy the First Order. He straight up admitted to Han Solo that he lied to the Resistance about being able to shut down the planetary shields because he really just wanted to rescue Rey.

 

[Contrabardus]

Contra, I think you have significantly misunderstood Finn's motivation. Finn never "went all in" with the resistance, nor did he want to destroy the First Order. He straight up admitted to Han Solo that he lied to the Resistance about being able to shut down the planetary shields because he really just wanted to rescue Rey.

He gave up the First Order and explained what the base's weakness was and gave the Resistance the map knowing full well the stakes involved. As the final battle showed, he knew what he was talking about and gave up a legitimate weak point.

He was also expecting to be able to figure out how to shut down the shields. He says so when they are on the planet's surface. He had no intention to fail and leave the Resistance hanging. He was overconfident and kind of mirrored the younger Han Solo's overconfident and careless swagger in that particular instance.

He knew where the shield controls were, and had a vague idea of what he needed to do to get them down, the only thing was he didn't really have a plan about exactly how he was going to manage it. I'm kind of surprised they didn't give a nod to Indiana Jones and have him tell Han "I'm making this up as I go". It would have been yet another referential joke, but it also would have fit the scene pretty well and wouldn't have seemed out of place.

Fin exaggerated what he knew so they would send him specifically down to the surface along with Han and Chewie, but it's clear he had every intention of both succeeding in the mission and rescuing Rey. It was never an either or scenario. He managed it and took down the shield when the opportunity arose and didn't back out.

He even went above and beyond his mission parameters to help break the defenses of the heat regulator bunker, helping Han, Rey, and Chewie set up charges to break it open for the Resistance to penetrate and destroy it. Once he got the shield down, he was done with what he had agreed to do, but he stayed and continued to work against the First Order anyway. He had chosen his side by that point and it's made pretty clear.

Yes, Rey was his primary motivation, but in the end he helped the Resistance destroy Starkiller Base, and it wasn't accidental. He was instrumental in the success of the attack and did his part. If that's not going all in, I don't know what is.

It's worth noting that once he did manage to help Rey, she wouldn't have given him any choice about helping the Resistance anyway. After the scene in the bar he was probably aware of that. So it was likely never a one or the other option with him, he had to do both or she wouldn't have forgiven him.

I also don't see any reason he wouldn't have done the same if Rey had not been taken by Kylo Ren. She would have wanted to help out and would have been involved with the assault and going along with Han, and he would have tagged along with her. They probably would have ended up in the same position regardless. He still would have overstated his ability to get the shields down and ended up in the same mission with the same crew either way.

 

[seitora]

By the way, am I the only one who thinks that the Nazi parallels with the First Order is a little bit lazy?

the original trilogy had a little bit of it with the Empire, but it was nowhere near blatant. The FO officer costumes look a lot more inspired by Nazi outfits, the Nazi salute by all the stormtroopers, etc. I swear someone even had a cap in the movie inspired by the skull-and-crossbones cap, but I might be mistaken (stuff like propaganda and conditioning et al isn't Nazi or even fascist-specific)

 

[Altered Nova]

Well they are a military junta formed from the most hardcore and fanatical remnants of the fallen empire. Everyone who wasn't conscripted like Finn was an ideological zealot (all the non-extremists would have surrendered to the New Republic), so it makes sense that they would be even more Nazi-ish than the original Empire.

 

[seitora]

Well they are a military junta formed from the most hardcore and fanatical remnants of the fallen empire. Everyone who wasn't conscripted like Finn was an ideological zealot (all the non-extremists would have surrendered to the New Republic), so it makes sense that they would be even more Nazi-ish than the original Empire.

Not what I'm saying. They could have went with Nazi allusions, but instead they threw subtle right out the window.

 

[Altered Nova]

What I was trying to say is that I don't think the blatant Nazi/First Order parallels are lazy, I think they are intentional. The Empire had it's share of extremists, but on the whole it wasn't pure evil and a lot of them were just ordinary joes trying to make a living (remember, Luke wanted to join the Empire before his family was murdered by stormtroopers.) A lot of them (those who had never met the Emperor or Darth Vader) thought they were the good guys and were making the galaxy a better place.

The First Order, on the other hand, is entirely ideological zealots and brainwashed conscripts. Nobody in the First Order is an ordinary person just doing their job. So the Nazi allusions being more obvious could be a symbolic way of showing how much more hardcore they are than the Empire that preceded them. Because unlike the Empire, nobody who works for the First Order could be a well-intentioned person who just doesn't realize how nasty their bosses are. They're all either crazy/evil and willingly signed up for a crazy/evil organization, or were never given a choice and indoctrinated to never question orders.

 

[Rising Dragon]

I read somewhere that the thematic origin of the First Order was basically "What if ODESSA succeeded?"

 

[Contrabardus]

I read somewhere that the thematic origin of the First Order was basically "What if ODESSA succeeded?"

This is apparently something JJ Abrams said at some point, but I'm unable to find a direct source for the quote.

Not saying it's not true, just that I'm unable to find any thing but claims he said it from second hand sources that never cite a reference for it.

It does fit with what's in the movie though, so I don't see why not. It's definitely a reasonable theory and I'd bet it's true. Just couldn't verify it is all.

 

[daniel_gudman]

Ehh...

The Star Wars Empire was clearly built up as the Roman Empire, the largest city (well, planet-city) in the world sitting at the center of a big heterogeneous society that engaged in mutual trade under the protection of a powerful military that enforced economic engagement, and infrastructure.

Originally it was a Republic (where social heterodoxy was tacitly acceptable as long as your clan paid federal taxes), but after a faction of populist power-mongers slowly accumulated more authority and then become overwhelmingly popular from military conquest, there was a squabble in the top clique, one guy eliminated his competition, and got himself crowned Emperor.

Disregarding that a lot of the surface-level stuff was linking the Empire to the Nazis (like, say, "Stormtrooper"), going any deeper than "Well, they're Bad Guys so give everything a coat of Nazi paint", the historical analogy is for a different time and place.

 

[Contrabardus]

Ehh...

The Star Wars Empire was clearly built up as the Roman Empire, the largest city (well, planet-city) in the world sitting at the center of a big heterogeneous society that engaged in mutual trade under the protection of a powerful military that enforced economic engagement, and infrastructure.

Originally it was a Republic (where social heterodoxy was tacitly acceptable as long as your clan paid federal taxes), but after a faction of populist power-mongers slowly accumulated more authority and then become overwhelmingly popular from military conquest, there was a squabble in the top clique, one guy eliminated his competition, and got himself crowned Emperor.

Disregarding that a lot of the surface-level stuff was linking the Empire to the Nazis (like, say, "Stormtrooper"), going any deeper than "Well, they're Bad Guys so give everything a coat of Nazi paint", the historical analogy is for a different time and place.

You're not wrong, per say, but you do seem to be overstating the influence of Roman history on these movies quite a bit.

Star Wars draws from a lot of different historical elements from all over the world. What you're suggesting here sounds like a gross oversimplification, and honestly Roman history was a minor influence at best on anything in the saga.

There are parallels to the British Empire, Japan's feudal era and Imperial aspirations during WWII, the Nazis, Roman history, the Mongols, and even some Middle Eastern influence [the Ottoman Empire in particular], but modern history takes the lion's share of credit for inspiring the settings and politics in the saga.

The Imperial Military was most obviously intended to be similar to Hitler's War machine in Europe, but also did share some aspects of Japan's Navy in the pacific as well. The Trade Federation was even more obviously inspired by WW II Japan, and not just because of the aliens with Japanese accents being in charge. It was obvious to begin with due to their motivations and tactics, the accents were just beating audiences over the head with it.

The prequels were much more a reflection of the Pacific theater with elements of WW I mixed in more than a little liberally than the OT's WW II EU theater trappings. Star Wars in general is a jumble of both wars and the period in between more than any other period that it draws from. The Jedi being the only really deviation from that as they were mostly intended to be space Samurai that drew more from Akira Kurosawa movies than actual history.

Honestly, the Old Republic was less an allusion to the old Roman Empire, and more representative of Europe after WW I, with its many trade disputes and squabbles over borders and territories in the aftermath of the first big war. The timeline is jumbled, but the influences are obvious to the point of being ham fisted at some points.

I'm not saying that Roman history had no influence on Star Wars settings at all, it obviously does draw from that era a little, just that you sound like you're vastly overstating how much influence it had in inspiring the setting. The prequels were set in a climate much more like the Europe of the 20s and 30s rather than that of ancient Rome. Palpatine's rise was fully intended to mirror Hitler's rise to power in Germany.

 

[daniel_gudman]

Well, I mean, because it's a fantasy space opera, of course it's not going to be an extended historical metaphor, it's going to be broad strokes with lots of blurry disagreement.

But even so, with that caveat that I think we can both agree on, I disagree with you on the Hitler thing, fundamentally.

The influences feel ham-fisted because all the Nazi Stuff got crowbarred in because Nazis = Evil so why not?

But the actual political situation shown in Star Wars can't be compared to Europe over the last hundred-odd years, not really.

Because:
There weren't any nations anywhere near the size of the Republic.

There just aren't any. There was the Galactic Republic, which was getting torn apart at the seams by internal conflicts until that become full-on civil war, but there weren't any genuine foreign nations it had to worry about.

WW1 was about the Red Queen's Race between multiple European Powers as they built up and competed in a zero-sum game for total influence, until they all dragged each other into a humongous brawl. Then WW2 was launched as a sequel because the losing team in WW1 got ripped apart and impoverished and there was lots of festering anger.

And Palpatine's rise didn't mirror Hilter at all. Maybe the producers intended it to do that, but it didn't.

Hilter was a down-on-his-luck ex-infantryman who discovered a talent for demagoguery, got swept up with a radical hard-right reactionary party, and then launched a bid to get elected to the parliament artificially imposed on his country after they lost WW2, cheated his way into parliament, and then inflamed tensions so he could build a militarist coalition that let him restart WW1 (only with better, more terrifying technology). Domestically his strategy was to scapegoat internal groups that were already unpopular as explanations for why they lost last time, so that he had a kind of logic for why it would even be possible to win Round 2: get rid of the traitors holding you back and you'd stand a better chance.

Meanwhile, Palpatine was a Senator that took advantage of social unrest and internal rebellion to get himself elected Chancellor, and he just accumulated more and more powers, then launched a purge after he survived an assassination attempt, until he could just change his job title to Emperor.

That's much closer to the arc of the Julius, who formed the First Triumverate with Crassius and Pompey in the wake of Sparticus' huge slave rebellion, and eventually their distrust led to a breakdown in their backroom alliance and became an open civil war between Julius and Pompey after ultra-plutocrat Crassius died. Later conservatives in the government assassinated Julius, which led to popular rioting that was exploited by his heirs to dissolve the Republic and form a perpetual dictatorship.

Yeah it's not one-to-one, but map Caesar's Civil War onto the Clone War with the Separatists (heck, since the war was between Dooku and Palpatine doing the Rule of Two Master/Apprentice Backstabbing Contest thing writ galactically large, it even kinda matches on the competition between Julius and Pompey), and assume that Palpatine-the-Julius-analogy survived the assassination attempt by the Jedi and used the popular outrage to have them purged by the military, and that works a lot better than Hitler.

And, like, yeah the Jew thing, it's not like Palpatine singled out an unpopular ethnic minority and genocided them as, like, In-Group Conforming on a massive scale; he had all the Jedi killed off, but since they were a powerful cabal of Space-Sorcerors that legitimately wanted him dead, that doesn't work out.

And again, I'm not saying any of this is intentional; in fact I can definitely see that Lucasworks wanted to make it more a Nazi thing than a Roman Empire thing. But the result is, if we put them all side-by-side, Weimar Germany, The Galactic Empire, and the Roman Empire, I think Nazism is kind of the odd duck out.

 

[seitora]

daniel, your analysis hits it on the head a lot more than I was thinking, but I don't really have the historical knowledge like you possess to really have put my finger on it in the first place. The First Order certainly shares lots of elements with fascism, more than Donald Trump ever will no matter how much people like to throw that pejorative at him (he's a lot of things including a bigot and a populist, but a fascist he isn't), but it's not exclusively fascist.

At the very real risk of derailing this topic though, how did Hitler cheat his way into Parliament? My understanding of history is he legitimately won a sizable minority of a vote in the Weimar Republic's last legitimate election (though certainly with no small amount of roughing up voters and 'convincing' them to vote for the Nazis), but then lucked out twice in a row by idiots convincing Hindenburg to appoint him Chancellor and an arrested Communist claiming he set the Reichstag on fire giving Hitler what he needed to suspend rule of law for good.

 

[daniel_gudman]

I considered the stuff you listed treacherous enough (voter fraud, circumventing procedures to form minority governments, using every chance to consolidate power in the party rather than the government) that I pushed it all under the heading of "cheating", plus all the party-internal backstabbing Hilter did before then to push out the rest of the party leadership.

 

[Contrabardus]

I'd respond to that, but I'm too mad right now because I just spent the last half hour or so watching inept parents spoil Return of the Jedi for their kids to get a shocked reaction face for the camera.

I came across a video of a parent recording their kid's reaction to Empire's big reveal at the end, I figured that it would be cute and nostalgic for me, and it was, until the end when felt a vein pulse in my forehead when he immediately confirmed it as true to the child, spoiling one of the biggest moments in Return of the Jedi for the kid. Several other videos of the same thing had parents that did the exact same thing, spoiling the last movie for a reaction shot of the kid's face to whore out on Youtube for clicks and likes.

WTF is wrong with these people? I hope I get the chance to see an early screening of Episode VIII so I can PM every one of these idiots with spoilers and ask them how they like having a movie spoiled for them. I'm old enough to remember seeing Empire and Jedi in theaters, and I vividly remember the anticipation of finding out the truth behind that when I put my but into the seat to watch Jedi for the first time.

Parents who do this to their children for any reason should be ashamed of themselves. It should be revealed where it was meant to be, on the screen in Return of the Jedi, not with an Iphone shoved in their face to get an 'O' mouth shot for a video before the scene in Empire is even over.

Fuck every parent that does this to their kids.

As I said, you're not wrong, but I do think you're reading into things a bit much there. The Jedi were representative of the Jews in the movies, but it's important to remember that they were never intended to be literal, but metaphorical. Lucas and Spieldberg are both big on WW II imagery, Spieldberg more so than Lucas, but they do share that distinctly. Both of them draw from that a great deal.

Lucas is kind of hack though, and I think he just sucked at getting it across. He has a history of ruining projects by getting involved with them and making childish demands that make no sense. He's ruined several video game projects by doing this at least, and arguably three prequels by some accounts. They got better when he got help, but it was a hard climb back from Episode 1 to Episode III. Lucas, as a writer and director, is about as ham fisted as you can get.

I really do love Star Wars, but the more I learn about the man, the more I suspect his involvement with the OT was little more than financing and having his name slapped on the titles. I'm starting to really believe that his wife had more to do with it than he did as far as the writing of A New Hope goes.

Well, I do give him credit for the effects work he helped pioneer, but that's it, and it's a mixture of good and bad at that. For every amazing practical effect he had, there's another horrible CGI shot in the prequels that cancels it out.

I should probably stop and settle down some as I'm still severely annoyed over parents spoiling Star Wars for their kids over a reaction shot for a Youtube video.

 

[daniel_gudman]

I find the general trend of fucking with your kids for other peoples' Schadenfraude to be pretty suspicious behavior, myself.

As I said, you're not wrong, but I do think you're reading into things a bit much there. The Jedi were representative of the Jews in the movies, but it's important to remember that they were never intended to be literal, but metaphorical.

Yeah I don't see it.

Or rather, to be more precise, I believe you that they were intended to represent the Jews, but the Jedi totally don't come off that way.

The Jedi are a multi-species cabal of celibate wizards (recruited from the population at large based on genetic talent) with an ascetic aesthetic who meddle in the highest levels of government.

That's about as far from the insular outsider minority suspected of financial skullduggery as you could get.

The Jedi simply aren't a metaphor for the Jews.

The Catholic Church getting expelled from China by Mao, I could see that, but not the Jew thing.

"But they got wiped out by Palpatine!"

Palpatine is a Sith, from another religion of magic-users that lost a war with the Jedi in the distant past and has finally gotten revenge!

Where's that metaphor going? That Hitler was a secret Moabite?

I guess what I'm saying is the WW2 thing is convenient for Hollywood to use as imagery because it's still viscerally evocative and most people in the audience will visually recognize the references and the morality was unusually straightforward for a war; but just because it's more convenient doesn't mean it's more applicable. It's an easier metaphor to just always reach for WW2, not a better one. The quick and easy path etc.

Painting the New Order with all the SS imagery was because Lucasworks wanted to appropriate WW2 symbols so every time an Imperial soldier came on screen the costume director could nudge me in the ribs and say "hey these guys are evil" and I was like "shush, I'm trying to watch a space movie."

 

[Altered Nova]

Yeah, gotta agree with daniel on that one. Maybe in the original trilogy the Jedi were supposed to represent the Jews, and it could have worked in those films because we were told next to nothing about how the Jedi actually operated as an organization before Palpatine's purge. But the prequel trilogy kind of buggered that all up by turning them into a massively powerful intergalactic diplomatic and peacekeeping military force that was highly involved in the government in addition to the whole religious space wizards thing.

 

[seitora]

Also, you know what?

My headcanon is that Jar Jar Binks was still alive 65 years after The Phantom Menace, and he was on one of those planets that got blown up.

Seriously, they should've done that. Show him on one of the planets, right before it got blown up. If that had happened I bet people would have cheered the FUCK out of it

 

[burnerx7]

And right now I have a vision of Jar Jar runing around without knowing what to do, trying to save himself in gooffy ways just to be consumed in the red light of doom

 

[Rising Dragon]

Am I seriously the only person who liked Jar Jar, stupid voice and antics and all? I mean goddamn, people, I understand the dislike but everyone takes it WAY too personally.

Also I feel like you're all making a bigger deal out of this Jew Jedi thing. I get the feeling it was less that they were to represent the Jews and more like that's what inspired the Jedi's situation in the original trilogy. I seriously doubt said inspiration was supposed to stretch back to the prequel trilogy, too.