RJ answered the only question that was being asked

Too clunky for a necklace I guess.

 

He's not a Sith, he's Supreme Leader. Anakin was meant to destroy the Sith and bring balance in the force, which he did. "Darkness rises, and the light to meet it". That can only happen when there's a balance.

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All this talk about what should have been and what should have constituted food writing. Funnily enough the critics judged this movie to have solid and good writing, yet none of the people claiming that the writing of the characters is bad provides any alternative.

 

I want to make a point that while some stuff doesn't need answered and I am not going to be that "plothole" guy, other stuff absolutely needs answered.

Force vision sequence in TFA is such a thing. They added a new power and new location. In essence, the vision was telling her something. It needs tied into Episode 9, otherwise your just left with something pointless. A pointless scene if it never gets implimented into the story.

 

I always found the whole "darkside master/student apprentice" bit kind of stupid. The rule of 2 and all that was some of the stupidest ideas in SW (It makes a list, but SW easily has a top 10, and yes the ST has a few entries imo). Unless there's a reason why they would limit themselves to 2 (I've yet to get an explanation to that) I have no idea what value it would present them. Personally I think Kylo killing Snoke was kind of neat. It was expected in 9, but not in TLJ. My issue is more that Kylo isn't that intimidating of a villain, and even if Phasma is alive, she isn't that impressive yet and Hux is a joke now (honestly, Hux would have never lived in Vader's Empire, he would have been choked out before making the movie... which lends to our good guys fighting a weaker adversary than our heroes in the OT.). So what's left, Mr.Emo taking tantrums at the good guys winning? Go go Power Rangers I guess.

 

It probably wasn't supposed to tell her anything beyond: "Pick up that saber and face that guy with the mask - your paths are destined to cross". Or: "Pick up that saber and return it to Skywalker". Ok, there was that thing about Bespin too. It's where the saber got lost. And that bit about her parents was a manifestation of her deepest longing...
Or maybe it was just JJ cutting together stuff from various sequences that were filmed but trimmed down in the editing process

 

I have my doubts. She already knew Kylo and her would be facing off.... she knew him well before that. And what was the point of the shot where Kylo stabs that guy in the back?

I don't know.. all that for message of "Go fight Kylo" just doesn't make sense to me.

 

I could start a thread about how much baggage the prequels put on the galaxy (to neither Lucas or Disney's fault) but that would be negative energy, and I ain't about that, lol.

 

Are you really satisfied with that explanation? There is a prophecy saying the chosen one will restore balance to the force and destroy the Sith, Anakin was supposed to have fulfilled that prophecy and that was the culmination of his story arc in episodes 1 to 6.
Now with the introduction of Snoke in the ST we have an extremely powerful dark side character who from we can see is a Sith in everything but name, he is also very old and has been around since the beginning of the saga. The question of how Snoke is related to the prophecy was introduced as soon as his character was revealed, this is not some side story that fans just like to speculate about, it is essential to the whole saga. There is of course still time to explain this in ep IX but if the character is really dead like we are lead to believe then I don't think we are going to get a satisfying explanation and this would be a serious oversight on behalf of the writers.

 

Here's the explanation:

The Jedi aren't good at this. TLJ, like it or not, validated that part of the prequels that bugged a lot of fans for years - the silliness of the Jedi Order. Whatever they say should is suspect because they didn't even understand the prophecy.

If there's anything truly begging an explanation, it's the fraking prophecy itself. Where did the prophecy come from? From who? Was is a Jedi? Was it a Sith? Did Bane plant it? Did the Jedi understand that the Dark Side is not limited to the Sith? Was that their opinion, interpretation? And was it their fact? Did Qui-Gon read the Dead Dune Sea Scrolls and understand a different interpretation of the prophecy? Was anything lost in translation regarding the prophecy?

We can extrapolate any number of theories about what the Jedi knew or assumed or understood, but the last we really get about the Jedi and the prophecy is born out by actual dialogue.

"Misread, may have been."
"The Force doesn't belong to the Jedi."
"Failure, folly, weakness."
"Page turners, they were not."

So the information about the prophecy and whatever interpretations may have existed is highly suspect, and the canon (pre-Disney) has already included an entire society of dark witches, multiple dark side apprentices (Opress, Ventress) thereby indicating that the truth, like the future, is always in motion and flexible. If we're going to label Snoke as a Sith, then we're making a big outside-canon assumption, not a stating a fact based on the canon-evidence.

 

Well, we can put tomatoes, egg plants, beans, broccoli and onions together and can say, that they are all vegetables, but that doesn't mean that there are no differences between them.

Fett, the Generals and the Bothans never were introduced as "big numbers" - maybe Fett a little, but not as much as it looks like today. But Fett, and the same is with the Emperor, were very archetypical. You saw the Emperor in its black robe, you heard him talking and you heard other people talking about them... and then you knew: Hey, this is the bad guy! It was just that easy and it was okay... in 1983.

Till then, SW expanded and some of the flat characters with no movie background got them in the PT (or even before, when you also consider the 'Legends'). When you introduce Snoke again as just "any bad guy in a black robe with even a similiar choir theme", it is now both: a repetition AND a step backwards. That was okay in TFA, but I also hoped, that there would be more behind Snoke than repetition and this step backwards... but now, there isn't. Snoke is just the same character like the Emperor was in the OT... and nothing more.

So I have to say: Snoke's case is for me not the same case like the Emperor, just because there WAS the Emperor before Snoke.

 

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 13, 2018, Original Post Date: Jan 13, 2018 ---

Here you go:

 

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean (in Germany, we have the phrase "auf dem Schlauch stehen" for a situation like this), so maybe you can answer my question in a few sentences: What is, beside the names and titles, the difference between Snoke and Palpatine in the OT?

 

Um, I don't think that's quite right. I'm not a LucasFilm expert but I don't think they have a Department of Fulfilling Customer Expectations or a Vice President in charge of Pleasing Fanboys.

Lucasfilm is a business. Their job is to make money. Star Wars is a cash cow and they certainly don't want to kill it for financial reasons, but Lucasfilm remains a business. They hire artists who create content, and those artists probably feel a responsibility for the types of things we're talking about, but Lucasfilm is going to make movies that make money. The content is just a commodity to them. If the fan base wants a backstory movie about the two headed pod racer announcer guy but John Q. Public isn't interested, that movie won't get made.

 

There's no difference at all.
Just because it was done before, doesn't mean that it's now no longer permitted.

If someone's bummed that Snoke didn't get a backstory in TLJ, I don't see that as a logical reason to measure TLJ as poor in quality or technical form.
It simply didn't have something in it that someone wanted, because it wasn't about that.

However, it in no way was a flaw in the film unto itself or the continuing narrative of the ST in any way less or greater than the example comparisons from the OT.
Stating that we've witnessed that before in the OT so it's not acceptable now, gives us a referential metric whereby ROTJ is poor because it also has a Death Star like ANH.

Snoke was intentionally designed and written to be like the Emperor - quite clearly.
So what's the motivation for a creator to deviate Snoke off of the Emperor's archetype if the purpose is for Snoke to be a mirror of the Emperor in the OT?

I can understand being bummed that Snoke didn't get a backstory, but I don't really understand the idea of converting that to a poor grade upon TLJ.
That's not its fault, and the film isn't reduced in narrative quality by the absence of that feature.

To do so is quite literally a quantifiable logical error termed, "special pleading", whereby an accepted form has been presented as evident, and yet a special case is claimed for one sample in spite of the trend of the general population matching the element in question of the sample case.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Great post, great questions too. I have the same wonder after watching TLJ.

 

I thought I already answered that when I posted - "Here's what we know about Kylo's backstory - He was Han & Leia's kid. At some point (we have no idea when) he hooked up with Luke. Then at some point (we have no idea when) Snoke started turning him to the Dark Side (but we have no idea how). Luke freaked out about it (just randomly out of the blue) and nearly killed him. Which finally pushed Kylo to the Dark Side. That's it. That Kylo's backstory. How can you not find that lacking?"

Is the "narrative plot" I described above accurate? Did I miss something? Maybe I'm not understanding the term. Perhaps you are focused on "plot" and I am focused on a lack of motivation in regards to the plot.

Why'd Kylo turn to the Dark Side? Snoke turned him.
How'd he do that? Don't worry about it.
When did he do that? Don't worry about it.
What did Kylo do to push Luke over the edge? Stop asking questions!

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 14, 2018, Original Post Date: Jan 14, 2018 ---

I don't know where to start with my disagreement. I disagree with "show, don't tell" and "leaving things vague and up to interpretation". Can give you giove examples of this in the OT? Maybe I've forgotten something.

In regards to the backstories in TLJ, in my opinion they were paper-thin and unfulfilling. Snoke is the easiest to point out, a since it was completely non-existent. Rey's parents (at this point) would be second on the list. It's almost like RJ was afraid of providing anything meaningful in regards to anyone's backstory.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 14, 2018 ---

Ding! Ding! Ding!

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 14, 2018 ---

Do you REALLY want us to write some stuff up for you? And if you did, would you REALLY keep an open mind about it? I'm doubtful.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 14, 2018 ---

Well start one somewhere, because I'm on board!

 

This is how I would critique the difference between Snoke and Palpatine:

On the surface the differences appear to be insignificant, but when you look at how they function in the narrative and in relation to other characters the fundamental difference between them becomes quite significant.

If we would stay with the comparison between the sequel and original trilogy, Snoke is a so-called "selfserving pragmatic trickster" whereas Palpatine is an "ulterior motive trickster". Snoke is more like DJ than Palpatine in this respects. They're all trickster archetypes, but not every trickster is the same. Palpatine's ulterior impersonal motivation in his scenes with Luke and Darth Vader is for the darkside (not the Sith, there were no Sith in the originals) to survive, whoever gets killed and whether or not Luke turns, the Darkside should rule supreme. That is not a personal self-centred motivation but an ulterior one. With Snoke it is the other way around, he does not have an ulterior impersonal motive. His sole motive is to remain in power and protect his own person (the "supreme leader"). The emperor was willing to sacrifice himself for the higher impersonal purpose (the darkside) if it would cause Luke to turn. Palpatine concerned himself with the larger meta-conflict of the light against the darkside. Snoke was concerned with maintaining his own person and supreme authoritarian poweer of which the meta-conflict between light and dark is secondary. One, Palpatine, is impersonal objective-serving, the other, Snoke is self-serving. Those are significant differences.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 14, 2018, Original Post Date: Jan 14, 2018 ---

Don't be pessimistic. There's no need for that. Just give us an example of what would have constituted 'good writing' and characterization. No hard feelings of course.

 

What do I have to do to "Like" posts? I thought I had the 30 credits or whatever.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 14, 2018, Original Post Date: Jan 14, 2018 ---

Bingo!

 

Well, I don't get it: Either there's no difference at all or there is the difference, that one of them (the Emperor) was introduced before the other (Snoke). The great difference would be, that the Emperor couldn't be seen as a copy of himself (except of some weird Legend-ideas).

And then I have no rights to critisize that it wasn't about it? I mean, of course, you can exxagerate this ("Oh, I wanted to see Ewoks, and they've shown me Porgs"), but just because Snoke was introduced as the "main villain" in TFA, there IS a difference between Snoke and the Bothans or Ewoks or whatever.

And what let you think that I've got no problems with the Death Star in ROTJ?

That's a good question. And TLJ missed to give me a good answer to it.

Well, when you look at TLJ as a lone movie, you're right. But it is the part of a trilogy that is part of a nine-movie-long story. And of course: When there are more informations about Snoke in Episode IX, noone will ever complain about the missing facts in TLJ.

And another thing: For me, it doesn't make TLJ to a bad movie or the ST to a bad trilogy, when Snoke is just used as a copy of the Emperor. But it would make the ST better, when he is more than this.

Okay, that's an argument I can understand and yeah, you're right: The way, they use Snoke in the narrative is another and this is one of the most interesting things in TLJ, yeah. And I think, it would even better, when Snoke would have been a more elaborated background instead of just no background like the Emperor in the OT.