Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Pre-release)

Re: Star Wars Episode VII

cboath said:
Just my .02....

I think post ROTJ that the various planets were reluctant to form a large over-arching government out of fear that a new empire could emerge. I think 7 could very well open with a crawl stating that due to the events of the E's 1-6, after the defeat of the empire most planets decided to go it alone and now a force has emerged that has begun gobbling them up one by one....

Doesn't preclude that force being a new empire or the remains of the old one, or a completely new force. I more like the idea of a new force and the old empire still exists and the new government will have to strike a deal for their help to defeat the new enemy.
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Um, the Rebels were officially called the Alliance to Restore the Republic. ;)
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

JD said:
Hitler committed suicide because of Germany's imminent defeat, so this point is pretty much moot.
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Not necessarily so. As anyone who's read a lot about WW II, and Nazi Germany in particular, would know that within Hitler's inner circle there was a lot of plotting and scheming going on where various high ranking Nazis were busy trying to expand their sphere's of influence all the while trying to kiss up to Hitler. The 3 most notorious were Himmler, Goering, and Hitler's private secretary Martin Bormann and while they each may or may not have been "true believers" in National Socialism they all believed in using their positions to increase their own power, wealth, and influence and if circumstances were different they almost certainly would have tried to carve out their own little fiefdoms after Hiter's death. Himmler and Goering in particular were well situated to do so since they were in charge of the SS and Luftwaffe respectively and had thousands of men under their command including armored divisions, yes, the German air force during WW II actually had at least one armored division.

Borman wielded power of another sort, as Hitler's personal secretary he controlled access to Hitler, who got to see him, this also meant that he controlled what Hitler saw and heard. Although he commanded no troops it was this access to Hitler that made him very powerful within the Third Reich and although he wasn't very well liked by many of Hitler's inner circle he certainly could have made a post-war grab for power by getting true believers to follow him. He might have been able to convince officers that were die-hard Nazis or individual units to swear allegiance to him by virtue of his closeness to Hitler and a bit of creative mud slinging at any rivals.

Given this historical example is that much of stretch to believe that individual Moffs and governers who commanded far more power and territory than any Nazi ever did couldn't have carved out their own fiefdom after the fall of the Emperor? Remember, this is not like WW II where Germany lost all of its conquered land and had enemies pressing in on Berlin two sides, as far as we've been shown the Empire hasn't lost even one planet to the Rebellion much less have them pressing on Coruscant. Near as I can tell the Empire was still pretty much complete intact by the time of the Battle of Endor and with the exception of losing Vader and the Emperor it still was at the end. So you figure that the next logical step for the Rebellion after Endor, depending on where Endor was, would have been to "march" on Coruscant and battle with what I'm sure would have been a home fleet stationed in the sector if not around the planet itself in order to make good on the death of the Emperor and Vader. Depending on how far Endor was from Coruscant and what forces were in between the true end of the Empire could have been a few months to a few years with a lot of systems and planets still under effective Imperial control even if Imperial control meant an individual governor or Moff acting on their own.
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

Riceball - I think I'm guilty of replying and not reading enough of the original post; you've got some great points there that went into a a lot of depth. The third paragraph has some interesting speculation... I'm not that well versed on WWII, but I think the comparisons are a bit off base as the Empire assumed control of an established government (not necessarily by force) whereas Nazi Germany actively invaded.

I think the celebrations on each planet at the end of RotJ hinted strongly that the overthrow of the Empire was well at hand...
 
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Re: Star Wars Episode VII

JD said:
@Riceball - I think I'm guilty of replying and not reading enough of the original post; you've got some great points there that went into a a lot of depth. The third paragraph has some interesting speculation... I'm not that well versed on WWII, but I think the comparisons are a bit off base as the Empire assumed control of an established government (not necessarily by force) whereas Nazi Germany actively invaded.

I think the celebrations on each planet at the end of RotJ hinted strongly that the overthrow of the Empire was well at hand...
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The celebrations were one of those things that I had issues with in the SEs, there's no way that word would have traveled that fast that the Emperor & Vader were dead and one victory does not make a war won. As with all totalitarian societies there is complete control over the media and there's no way that what ever passes for an Imperial news network is going to broadcast that the Emperor is dead. even if the anchors/reporters are sympathetic to the Rebellion there would definitely be loyalists in control of the actual broadcast capability and they would see to it that word doesn't get out, that's assuming they even knew about Endor and the battle there.

It's also a big stretch to say that everybody in the Empire hated the Emperor and the Empire and were happy to see him dead. As you pointed out, most, if not all, of the Empire was not conquered so much as inherited from the Old Republic after the Clone Wars and the people, for the most part, clearly saw him as a savior and welcomed Imperial rule. Even after 30 years they probably still didn't think of the Emperor as some sort of evil dictator, you have to remember that he was always very careful about the image he projected to the public and almost certainly made heavy use of propaganda. Just look at dictatorships here on Earth, while in some cases people are clearly unhappy and hate their leadership there are any number of others where the people don't see their gov't and ruler(s) as evil and are happy with the way things are. Take China for instance, while it isn't exactly a dictatorship it's hardly a free country but the people are now well fed, making good money, and are able to travel freely, and live an almost Western lifestyle but they don't enjoy all of the same freedoms that we do, do you think that they'd see some rebellion as a good thing? A rebellion that would threaten the peace and security that they're enjoying and not to mention wealth?
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

Riceball said:
The celebrations were one of those things that I had issues with in the SEs, there's no way that word would have traveled that fast that the Emperor & Vader were dead and one victory does not make a war won.
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I agree completely. Not necessarily that word couldn't have traveled that fast, but that even if it did, it by no means meant victory over the Empire. It simply was too massive a thing to be overwhelmed at the Battle of Endor and there were inevitably far too many ambitious others within the Empire to remotely accept defeat at that one place. But, that's what we got because, again, I just believe GL was tired and was ready to neatly wrap things up. His original premise of a nine-episode saga was nothing to do with the "EU"; it was straight from his own mouth.
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

We do know the Rebellion was having an effect on that galaxy. Dissolving of the Senate, using fear of the Death Star (and the destruction of Alderaan) all add up. Even a moisture farm boy on Tatooine "hated" the Empire and planned to join the Rebellion before he stumbled across that pair of droids (and that was prior to a lot of that).

I liked the celebrations for a few different reasons. Mostly, because we saw that the Rebellion worked (at least at that point in time) and there was an effect. I don't see it as an immediate reaction - although it appeared as same time, it could've been days/weeks/months after the battle of Endor.

Hmmm. The communication/news bit is something worth thinking about. It seems obvious that the Imperials kept a tight leash on all that... I wonder just how far the Rebel had influence and if they also had some communications/new source set up.
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

JD said:
We do know the Rebellion was having an effect on that galaxy. Dissolving of the Senate, using fear of the Death Star (and the destruction of Alderaan) all add up. Even a moisture farm boy on Tatooine "hated" the Empire and planned to join the Rebellion before he stumbled across that pair of droids (and that was prior to a lot of that).

I liked the celebrations for a few different reasons. Mostly, because we saw that the Rebellion worked (at least at that point in time) and there was an effect. I don't see it as an immediate reaction - although it appeared as same time, it could've been days/weeks/months after the battle of Endor.

Hmmm. The communication/news bit is something worth thinking about. It seems obvious that the Imperials kept a tight leash on all that... I wonder just how far the Rebel had influence and if they also had some communications/new source set up.
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I'm sure that the Rebellion would have had their propaganda arm and possibly their own pirate comms to spread the word but I'd imagine that it would have difficult and extremely risky for any civilian to have tuned into it. Of course the Rebels probably had word spread by mouth from sympathizers and carefully spreading word of the Rebellion and rumors. Then there would be the clever ones who would be able to figure out things based on rumors and what's not being said by the Imperial news and maybe some of their own personal experiences. But overall I'd say that the majority of the Empire had little to no knowledge of the Rebellion, what it's truly about, what they've done, and how successful they have or have not been. Just think of how little real news and information we get from the mainstream media these days, multiply that by 10 where every bit of news is fed to them by or at least approved by the Empire and there is no alternative media to turn to? It would be like getting the news only from CNN or FOX except that it wouldn't just what they wanted to us to hear but it would be what the government wanted us to hear.
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

The thing is, what kept people in line and under the emperor's control were the Emperor, Vader, and the Death Star - and more accurately the threat/fear of those things. Once they are all gone, why wouldn't people party in the streets? There's no one left to fear. They don't fear Moff Smith. There's no guarantee that Moff Smith is even agrees with anything that's being done.

Using the logic that some people have to have preferred the imperial way, it also follows members of the military from top to bottom also would be happy to jump ship at the news as well.

There was nothing ever shown on screen at all that showed that anyone in the military agreed with the emperor. In fact, there were a couple things showing they were scared ****less of vader and the emperor.

It's not impossible some admiral's, general's or moffs could have some power, but i'd venture the emperor wouldn't stick anyone in a power position who he thought was under his complete control and had little to no ambition to take over themselves. Kind goes with the 'their can only be two' sith rule. You can control one, but if there's two they can plot behind your back and take you down.
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

cboath said:
The thing is, what kept people in line and under the emperor's control were the Emperor, Vader, and the Death Star - and more accurately the threat/fear of those things. Once they are all gone, why wouldn't people party in the streets? There's no one left to fear. They don't fear Moff Smith. There's no guarantee that Moff Smith is even agrees with anything that's being done.
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On the contrary, Joe Citizen fears the local Imperial, who in turn fears their supervisor and then up the chain - but, the big imposing threat are the big two (at least from what we've seen on screen).
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

My problem with the celebration scenes was the scrubbing of the "Yub Nub" music.

I mean the issue here is resolving the narrative's need for a happy ending and then trying to place that in the context of the fictional universe.

I suppose the issue could also be resolved by reframing the "celebrations" as "riots" that were repressed.
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

cboath said:
It's not impossible some admiral's, general's or moffs could have some power, but i'd venture the emperor wouldn't stick anyone in a power position who he thought was under his complete control and had little to no ambition to take over themselves. Kind goes with the 'their can only be two' sith rule. You can control one, but if there's two they can plot behind your back and take you down.
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I'd argue the opposite, if you assign nothing but a bunch of sycophants and boot lickers who have little to no ambitions in high positions within the Empire you would have a very weak government and military and I doubt that the Empire would have lasted as long as it did if it had. Those aren't the kind of people you want in charge because they have no ambition they aren't going to do much beyond the minimum required of them because they have no ambition to move up the ladder. The most likely scenario would be to place highly ambitious and competitive people in charge and encourage to compete amongst themselves for promotions, power, and prestige so that they'd be too busy competing amongst each other to try to overthrow the Emperor.

As for the average Imperial citizen, I'm not sure that they necessarily lived in fear, at least not the ones living in the core systems and the humans. With the exception of an implication of bigotry towards non-humans and enslaving Wookies I never got the impression that the Emperor did anything that would have caused the average citizen to be living in fear. Sure, he probably severely curtailed their civil liberties but I'm sure that he did it gradually and during the Clone Wars he almost certainly used the war as an excuse to tamp down on civil liberties explaining as necessary and only temporary, then when the Rebellion started to happen he would have used it as an excuse to not restore what he had taken away. At the end of the day all most people care about is a roof over their heads, money in their pockets, and food in their bellies, everything else is secondary.

To put thing into perspective, what if the US government, or any other democratic government for that matter, slowly started restricting your rights citing the threat of ISIS/ISIL or a resurgent Russia in Ukraine, or even space aliens (pick your reason) as the reason for it? The gov't slowly coerces the media to only tell the public what they want them to report and gradually getting rid of any media outlet that won't or doesn't do as asked? Imagine this done little by little over the course of several years until you're living in what amounts to a police state but you still have your job, your house/apt., you're still getting paid, there's still plenty of food to be had, you have (more of the less) the same entertainment that you've alway had would you really notice? I'd wager that the majority of the populace wouldn't notice or care since they have peace and security or in the case of ancient Rome, bread and circuses. I'm certain that the Emperor was crafty enough a politician to give the people their bread and circuses combined with an external threat he was able to keep the majority of the Empire under control and not realizing or caring that they were being repressed.
 
Re: Star Wars Episode VII

Yeah, what exactly was the Empire doing that was so wrong? Were they making slaves out of everybody? Were they taxing people to death? Were they robbing parents of their children? Were they forcing people to do jobs they didn't want to do? I mean, what was really so bad?
 
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