The Destruction of the New Republic

I'm not against destroying the New Republic capital... just the fact that they barely even explained what was going on. We didn't see the surface of Alderaan, but it was powerful watching it be destroyed. Because we knew it's name. Why it mattered.

The crawl wasn't clear about the Republic-Resistance relationship, and there was no backstory about why none of our heroes were affiliated with the Republic, even though they are 'the good guys'.

TFA's failing, to me, is that I still don't understand what the First Order's motivation is and what we're supposed to make of the New Republic. Why did the First Order need to destroy the New Republic ('s capital)? Was the New Republic setting itself up to be destroyed through corruption/blindness? Those scenes with Leia and Korr Sella would have answered that, but we saw none of it.

By the end of my first viewing, I had no idea how much space the First Order controlled, whether the New Republic was good or as corrupt as the Old Republic, or what the heck Leia was doing with the Resistance.

That's not good storytelling.

 

I agree somewhat here. Within the movie they don't go into real depth about the Republic-Resistance relationship, other than the New Republic government seems to be tolerant even friendly to the Resistance (or at least that's how it looks to the First Order). I think they most of those details to novelization works.

Here I disagree some. I don't think it's a failing that we don't understand the First Order's motivation is, most fanatical groups don't know what their real motivation is either. They get indoctrinated, and spoon fed a cause/ideology that ensures their compliance and blind loyalty, not their understanding. So I will absolutely agree that we don't know the First Order's real motivation, we know their indoctrination, we know what most of them have been taught is their "cause" (i.e. establishing order). The actual agenda behind the First Order belongs to Snoke, and he hasn't articulated it as of yet. It's interesting how often movements are used by those in power to further another agenda.

As for the destruction of the New Republic's capital, it was a plot point. The Resistance was about to get BB-8 and find the location of Luke. The First Order believed that the Republic government was supporting the Resistance, and by removing the Republic, they could more easily take out the Resistance before they reached Luke (recall at this point in time they don't know where the Resistance head quarter is).

Agree somewhat again. We don't know how much the First Order controlled... before or after their attack on the Republic. We don't get a real good examination on whether the New Republic was good or corrupt, I think we're meant to infer that they are complacent beyond warrant about the threat that the First Order presents, and that is part of the reason why Leia is with the Resistance and not the Republic. The Resistance (it seems) is taking up an direct military action against the First Order, while friends in the Republic provide tacit support but not in any official capacity.

 

Well, that is one of the things we are able to see in the new canon. As the OT is centered in the events regarding the Skywalkers, sometimes we cannot see what the rest of the galaxy is going through. For example, "Lost Stars" give us a good idea of how some people regards the Empire as an organization able to keep order in the galaxy. Maybe they are not aware the Emperor is a Sith and the lack of justice in the rest of the galaxy, but they are somewhat limited by their point of view. "A New Dawn" gives us as well a glimpse of how the motivations between people from the same side will not always converge. "Bloodline" - from what I read so far - can show us that not everyone has the same perspective regarding the methods of government and the true dangers of the Empire.

Maybe if we see back in History we can find a lot of examples of Empires that have been defeated to be followed by a relative period of peace and then go back into war.

We have to remember the Empire had followers still around that moved to the Unknown regions. Unfortunately we don't know this by the movie: we find it out by the added canon.

 

That is the one thing that bugged me about the movie. They should have left that in, as it would explain a bit of what was going on. A lot of people were confused.

 

i agree with @Rayjefury that the ambiguity is deliberate. in fact, i'm a little disconcerted that it wasn't even more ambiguous (Hux's speech, to me, was too over-the-top, and i wish they'd been more conservative in their use of Starkiller).

i mean, we know the FO are the bad guys and that the New Republic is trying to play neutral while clandestinely supporting a rag-tag Resistance to oppose what they think is just a containable military junta.

i'm not sure what else we really need to know at this point. and i'm sure we'll learn more in viii.

 

Do we get all that from the film though? From what I remember we only know that the FO rises from the ashes of the empire and that, with the support of the Republic, Leia leads the Resistance. I don't recall learning that the Republic thinks of the FO as a containable military junta in the film, maybe in the extra materials but not in the film.

 

i think it is in the film when Poe reacts to seeing the Finalizer for the first time, and they get the information about the weapon.
there's maybe other hints i'm not thinking of at the moment.

it's subtle, but it's there, i think: they don't realize how big the FO operation is until they get fully embroiled.

i dunno ~ it struck me before looking at any other materials.

 

I got that look from Poe too but I think it is far too much of a stretch to take that surprise and think the audience will apply it to the whole Republic. We know that's how the Republic thought of the FO because of the extra material but the general audience is none the wiser. TFA was unforgivably vague.

 

i can only respond how i saw/understood the film. i can't speak for any "we" ~ not ever. just me.
so...i guess i got it. and didn't feel the need for more.

that said, i think the Korr Sella scene would have been cool to include anyway.

 

So true my friend.

 

Interesting... but, for me, being told an organization is evil without knowing what motivates them is frustrating and kind of annoying. I know they wanted to withhold a lot going into the new series, but I feel like their efforts to prevent spoilers leaking ended up affecting the movie itself.

Granted, the reasons why the Empire was so powerful weren't really explained until Episode III, but at least there we could surmise that the people supported it because it was the establishment. It was the government they had always known, with a name change. But the First Order is a splinter movement that controls some sector of space... who are the people that support it? Why do they support it when they, geopolitically speaking, are irrelevant? I know they want to hold back revelations about Kylo Ren and Snoke until later, but there was something missing that we could have learned from Hux or even Finn.

 

Fair enough. I guess for now I was content with their demonstration of evil, and settled in the fact that many times, when fanaticism is involved, those committing the atrocities most closely to the ground, couldn't tell you why they were doing it (if pressed for a real answer). They would repeat back their doctrine thinking that was the actual answer.

Any examination of the real motives behind the First Order is going to give away something about Snoke, so as frustrating as it may be, I kind of anticipated that we wouldn't learn much about him. I'm more interested in where he has been all this time, how he came to power in the First Order, and how it is he is a Dark Side user but not a Sith (and has been undetected). If they answer those questions, I think they'll simultaneously provide his motives.

Sometimes I feel like I need an actual Galactic Map, because one thing I am struggling to understand is how the FO could put together such a massive military presence and a literal planet sized base / super weapon with no one knowing. That seems odd. At least with the Death Stars, the Empire is in control of the galaxy, they can control movement and information. As you pointed out the First Order is a much smaller faction, with far less information control (one would assume). I agree that there is much more to the First Order that has yet to be (and must be) explained (including Snoke's casual indifference to the destruction of Star Killer base).

 

i don't know what the map looks like either, but i guess nobody goes out to the Outer Reaches because the Empire remnants were apparently out there colonizing and building like crazy without anybody taking heed. it seems implied that these regions are really fringe/ignored/unintegrated.

it is a big galaxy after all...

 

I thought I saw a map of it once but I couldn't tell if it was official or fan art. And you're right, the galaxy (any galaxy) is a big place, just seems like with all the interstellar travel that maybe someone sees a planet being turned into a base that can be visually identified from space. I mean even if you don't know where the planet is (which is plausible) you'd have to expect to see massive amounts of resources and labor clustering in a particular area. Supplying this kind of project... seems like it would have a HUGE footprint.

But maybe the Unknown Regions really is like a Galactic desert wasteland... and people have certainly built things in deserts before without other people noticing.

Wait... was it the outer reaches or the unknown regions? Or are they the same thing?

 

i didn´t see the whole new republic getting destroyed in this movie. The hosnian system yes...but there are LOTS of other systems. At least that´s what i thought. The new republic is crippled for shure,but not wiped out.

 

Agreed, but with much the of the Fleet and Governance gone now (as the FO intended) many of those systems would be vulnerable to FO attacks and perhaps to avoid unwinnable military engagements, would acquiesce to First Order rule. The First Order's ability to take down the Republic ship-to-ship, unlikely. They're ability to take down a system head to head with no Republic? Much more plausible. We'll have to see what happens next.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 27, 2016, Original Post Date: Apr 27, 2016 ---

One thing I didn't pay as close attention to as I should have was the victims of the attack. That scene was heart wrenching. But I'm glad they did it that way. With Alderaan we see a planet exploding in a distance, we don't see the faces of terror stricken victims moments before the destruction. On Hosnian, we see people coming out of buildings, homes, edifices looking up to the sky curious, looking up commenting, looking up confused, then looking up frightened as the light gets brighter and closer.

You can hear one guy saying, "No, no, no".
You can hear someone else say, "what is it?"
And then screams and cries.

Can you imagine the terror of having enough time to see the instrument of your destruction approaching, but not having time to make peace with it? To have the instinct to run and save yourself and in the next second realize that the end is upon you and there is nothing you can do, no where you can hide, no where you can run...

...that might be the most powerful and disturbing scene in the entire movie franchise.

How many FO fanatics would remain fanatics if they got to see the actual toll on life that firing that weapon cost? If they saw the terror? Man.

 

hahaha ~ i have no idea. it's just somewhere out there far far away from the regular gffa.

 

I agree the Korr Sella scene would have been nice but I would struggle in deciding where to put it in the film. I remember it said that they removed it because they wanted Leia to appear later in the film so with that in mind its hard to put in the Korr Sella scene without changing that decision.

I think it was also said the Empire had long been exploring and settling these unknown territories before the Galactic Civil War kicked off so I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least some substantial settlements there even if they don't approach the population of the core worlds. This is ignoring the potential territories that the FO has in the known Outer or Mid rims. The riot shield and stun baton stormtrooper equipment would suggest that the FO military is accustomed to population control and stamping out civil disobedience.

In my long arse post on how a theoretical war would break out after TFA I outlined how the demilitarisation of the NR basically sank most of their budget in building up local system defence forces under individual senators in the hopes of preventing a powerful central control (although that seems to risk creating warlords but whatever). What we saw destroyed, or mostly destroyed, in TFA was the peace keeping force directly under the Republic government which would have been bigger than most of the system defence forces and more capable of fighting an offensive war, probably a much better elite force overall. Individual planet/sector defence forces could probably defend themselves against the FO depending upon their size. Some of the poorer systems would undoubtedly be overwhelmed while the more affluent and populous ones would put up more of a struggle.

It would make sense for the next few films that Leia/Poe et al. spend their time trying to rebuild Republican forces while more territories are picked off by the FO. It's either the Republic on a very defensive footing or the Resistance doing hit and run after the galaxy been conquered (again) by the FO, those are the scenarios I see the ST following.

Surely they would deem it a necessary sacrifice for order and stability? Besides a death toll of that magnitude is beyond the comprehension of human emotion. After all:

The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.

This map is the one from TFA Visual Dictionary.

The purple region seems to indicate the extent of the unknown regions which is quite a large part of the galaxy. Whether that also defines the extent of the FO territory is another question but I think we can assume that the FO isn't as small as many would think.

 

So shouldn't that be, far, far, far, far away then?

 

it's far+